daveyjones (imported) wrote: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:15 am
The best way to clean a carpet is to go to the store or home depot and rent a Rug Doctor. Then, in lieu of their proprietary cleaning solution, substitute with the hottest water you can get from your tap, with a strong concentration of Oxy-Clean. If the water is white, its perfect. When you finish, your carpets will look brand new. It even works on that horrible oily soot from diesel exhaust (that stuff turns my carpets black). Just make sure that you vacuum thoroughly-- and that means SLOWLY!!!! Just a quick pass of the Vac does nothing. You have to go slow, and overlap each stroke. As a life long asthmatic, that is the only way. Speed reading is fine. Speed skating is fine, Speed drinking can be fun, but never, never speed vacuum. Take your time and go slooooow. You will find that even that old dinosaur vac in the closet will work great. Just make sure that the brushes are clean, you have a fresh bag, and the belt is in good condition. The same when you use the Rug Doctor. Go slooooow.
Good luck on the cleaning.
I agree with this approach but I use a mixture of the prorietary cleaning agent and Napi San (used for baby diapers -not sure what the US equivalent is but similar to Oxy-Clean in action I think) which not only pulls the dirt out but also removes any odours from damp or inconsiderate animals. I had a carpet that my dog learned housetraining on


and it always smelled bad when damp until the Napi-San. No problems at all now.

:):)Incidentally if you live in a sandy area the Rug Doctor and similar units really pull the sand out too but you have to give it several passes and work at it. Sand in your carpet grinds away on the base of the threads and wears them out faster so it is worth the extra effort. Forget about the commercial cleaners. They don't do half as good a job as you can do yourself for a lot less money.