Don’t steam-clean your carpets and you
could be back to the carpet shop far sooner than you’d hoped.
Your carpets suffer more wear and tear than
any other part of your house, especially in high traffic areas like your
hallway and around doors. Unlike the rest of Europe, we Brits don’t often
remove our shoes when we go into a home. Dirt on shoes rubs off onto your
glorious carpet leaving not only trails around your home that look like rabbit
runs criss-crossing fields, but it damages far deeper than you’d care to
imagine.
No, we’re not getting all deep and
meaningful here! I’m talking about the fine bits of dirt that your vacuum
doesn’t reach; the ground-in dirt that wriggles around and unwinds the fibres,
which then get knotted up, so you end up with microscopic shaggy dogs, or wax-
and sand-ridden surfbums, that work their way deep into the pile and slowly
destroy your carpet from the inside.
Doormats and regular vacuuming can
certainly help to keep the allergens down, your carpet in good condition and
your home’s air quality good. Steam cleaning your carpet a couple of times a
year, however, will keep your carpet alive and kicking for a lot longer. And
keep your family healthier into the bargain.
Healthier? How?! Well, you can use your
carpet’s ability to hold onto dirt. If it’s steam-cleaned regularly your carpet
works as a filter for all the muck that you carry into your home. Your carpet
will hold onto it all, sacrificing the grime up to the Great Steam-cleaner when
it comes to relieve your carpets’ burden.
Depending on how busy your home is, you
should consider getting your carpet professionally steam-cleaned every 2 to 6
months. Sounds a lot doesn’t it? But if you have children and pets charging in
and out of your home bringing mud, grass, sand, water and oil, can you really
afford to do it less? If you’re a professional couple with no pets and you
don’t smoke then every 6 – 8 months would be just fine.
Steam-cleaning starts with a detergent application
all over - there are special high traffic-area detergents that get down and
dirty with the proper muck. With the grime groomed out with a brush, a hot
water-wand takes several passes to magic out the residue and particles that
cling tightly onto the pile. At the end, your carpet is dried enough to ensure
the pile doesn’t stay wet. If it has to dry with no help, it’s in danger of
getting that unsightly brown tidemark.
Would you believe it, though, all this talk
of steam cleaning, the only steam that appears is what comes off the carpet
when the 150 Celsius water does its thing.
Carpets
are woefully under-cared for. Get in touch with a steam-cleaning professional,
who will also suggest you pamper your other under-loved piece of furniture:
your mattress. And rightly so: the expectations we have for our mattresses are
far beyond the love and pampering we give them. We are required by law to
service our cars yearly, and yet the carpets and mattresses of our lives, those
with which we spend so much more time, are in danger of plodding on year-in,
year-out with barely a thank you ... and yet a 6-monthly steam-clean will
inspire your carpets and mattresses to last for many, many more years.