Every home requires general maintenance over the years, from a fresh coat of paint to replacing a broken bathroom tile. Carpets can be easy to overlook on your home maintenance checklist, and with dirty shoes, pet messes, and everyday spills, keeping them clean may feel like a losing battle. Fortunately, with a few simple carpet cleaning tips, you can restore your rugs to a fresh, plush, like-new condition. Check out W.B. Homes’ best strategies for clean, beautiful carpets to make your home more comfortable for family and guests.
Handle Stains with Ease
Carpet stains can stick out like a sore thumb. Luckily, several basic home remedies eliminate those marks in no time. First, remember that you should dab the spot rather than rub when attempting to remove stains. When you blot the affected area with a wet cleaning cloth, you use only a small amount of pressure, which won’t grind the stain into carpet fibers. You should always blot from the outside in to keep the stain from spreading.
If you need more than water to soak up a stain, try a mixture of vinegar and club soda. This combination works on a variety of darker stains, like beer or wine. Should you drop a plate of food on the carpet when bringing your dinner to the living room, consider using dishwashing detergent to cut through the grease, and prevent an ugly stain.
Stubborn Solids
Anyone who loves the soft glow of candles is familiar with wax stains. These stains occur all too easily when blowing out a lit candle. Oddly enough, one of the best ways to remove the stain is to heat the wax. Place a white towel or cloth between your iron and the stained area. The wax will return to liquid form, allowing you to scrape it up. You’ll want to place a paper towel over the stained surface and briefly place the iron back on top to pull up as much wax as possible. Just be careful not to burn the paper towel!
While gum isn’t necessarily a stain, it is a nuisance when stuck to the fibers of your carpet. For a DYI solution, grab some ice cubes. Placing ice on the gum should freeze it in less than a minute. You can then use a spatula or spoon to lift the gum, allowing you to snip only a small portion of your carpet fibers. Take care, and the trim won’t be noticeable.
Make Deep Cleaning Part of Your Routine
Most people vacuum once or twice a week, which picks up pet hair, dust, and other debris that dirties carpets. Yet even the most thorough vacuuming job won’t clean the carpet’s fibers. For a more powerful clean, purchase, or rent a steam cleaning machine designed for carpets.
Using a deep-cleaning solution helps get to areas of your carpeting that other options simply can’t. Steam cleaners use water-jet nozzles and applied pressure to loosen dirt, crumbs, and debris that you didn’t even know were there. Once the carpet dries, it will look like new.
Keep It Clean
Now you know some basic tricks that can help keep your carpet looking as it did when you moved in. For other simple solutions and general maintenance tips, check out the W.B. Homes blog, where we share home improvement and maintenance ideas for every homeowner. If you’ve just moved into a new home in one of our welcoming neighborhoods, our home advisor offers great ideas for new homeowners. To learn more, call 215-800-3075 today.