Cleaning Supplies to Spring Clean Your Carpets
23 March 2011
Studies find the average carpet to be 4,000 times germier than a toilet seat so grab your cleaning supplies and give your carpets a spring clean
Spring is upon us and its time to spring clean our homes. A great place to start is by getting our cleaning supplies out and cleaning our carpets and rugs.
Leading microbiologist Dr Philip Tierno says that the average carpet is invaded by hundreds of thousands of different bacteria, about 200,000 per square inch.
The bacteria is partly supported by the 1.5 million skin cells that we shed daily add to this food and drink spills, pet hair and dust and you have an environment for germs to thrive. Dr Tierno says "You're bound to have communities of E. coli, salmonella, staphylococcus, and other bacteria down there,
so we should not only clean, but sanitise our carpets".
Using your vacuum cleaner regularly will help but this won't remove the bacteria and dust at the bottom of the carpet pile. Every time you walk on the carpet or roll around on it with your kids, you disrupt the bacteria, bringing some closer to the surface, says Tierno.
Remove your shoes when you come home, this will have the biggest impact on your home as shoes bring in dirt and germs from all the surfaces you have walked on...dirty pavements, grass verges, oily yards, kebab shops, petrol stations etc etc! You wouldnt lie in these places but we are happy to lie on our carpets harbouring the same bugs.
We can combat the bugs lurking in our carpets by using a carpet shampoo machine to thoroughly clean carpets and get to the bottom of the pile. You will need a good quality carpet cleaner to clean, freshen and remove soils and general dirt. Its good practice especially if you have children, to use a sanitiser along with your carpet cleaning product.
We have a great selection of carpet cleaning supplies, our Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner is an excellent cleaning product and extremely economical in use. Add in your disinfectant, we like our own Lemon Deodoriser & Disinfectant.
Besides our own Cleaning Shop brand we can offer Prochem carpet cleaning products, a specialist carpet & upholstery cleaning supplies manufacturer. Their Extraction Pro is a great all round cleaner and their Odour Fresh is an ideal additive to sanitise, deodorise and generally freshen your carpets.
First of all, before you start to clean your carpets, make sure you thoroughly hoover the carpet you are intending to shampoo. Experts recommend five sweeps over each section of carpet to get the most dirt particles from the carpet pile.
Simply make up a solution using warm water, add the solution to your carpet shampoo machine's solution tank and work your way around the room. If areas that are walked on more - the traffic lane areas, are looking dirtier than the rest of the carpet its fine to go over these areas again.
For areas where there are heavy stains or soils it will probably be necessary to use a pre-spray, Stain Pro is great for protein and food based spills, simply spray on, work in with a brush, allow a little contact time and use your carpet machine to sweep over and extract.
Always test an inconspicuous area of carpet with your carpet cleaning solution, before cleaning your carpets.
If you dont want to tackle the carpets yourself you could get a carpet cleaning contractor in to do the clean for you. Ideally find a contractor through recommendation, get a quote and make sure you know what the quote covers, for example, if you have stains will they be removed as part of the overall clean? Or will you be charged extra, its always best to ask these questions before you instruct a contractor.
For more help and information regarding cleaning your carpets or which cleaning supplies to use, please don't hesitate to contact us, we shall be happy to help.
