Carpet stains are the bane of a homeowner’s existence, especially when there are small children and pets bringing the outdoors in. Spills and their resulting stains can also make a carpet look dingy before it’s time. How do you keep your carpet looking better, for longer even if spills happen? The best way to treat spills and stains is to avoid using over the counter carpet spotters!
Why Spot Treating Carpet Doesn’t Work
Products like SpotShot or Resolve carpet spot treatment sprays and foams may make your carpet look better for a short time, but they don’t truly eliminate stains. Instead, they often just cause new ones! This is because these types of spotters leave a soap or chemical residue on your carpet that acts as a magnet for soil. Therefore, after just a short time, your stain seems to magically reappear, and can sometimes even look worse than before.
Carpet spot treatments are most effective when coupled with extraction. The benefit of extraction cleaning is that it rinses and extracts stains and the solution used to treat them. This is why Preferred Carpet Care uses hot water extraction to professionally clean carpets and upholstery. For especially soiled carpets, we pretreat stains with a spot treatment and follow by extracting the stain ensuring that it doesn’t mysteriously reappear.
The Vinegar Solution
A simple and safe way to spot treat a carpet in case of spills is a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water. Vinegar is non-toxic- safe to use around kids and pets! To quickly clean spots, spray the area with your 50/50 solution and then blot with a clean cloth or paper towel. Keep spraying and blotting until the stain lifts. For especially stubborn spots, after treating a couple times with the vinegar solution, you can layer 10-12 paper towels on the spot and weight it down with a book or other weight and let sit for a few hours or overnight until it dries.
Our Redding carpet cleaning team is happy to answer your carpet cleaning questions! For safe and effective professional carpet cleaning contact us today.