What’s In Your Carpet?

Preferred Carpet Care likes to tell people that professional steam cleaning at least once per year is recommended by most every carpet and rug manufacturer. The simple fact is that even if you vacuum your carpets once a week, dirt and other contaminants work their way into your carpet fibers to stay! Obviously, your household habits, workplace and surroundings all affect what goes into your carpets. Based on the habits of the average American household, here is a list of the top 9 things found in carpets.

The Top 9 Things Soiling Carpets

1. Food and beverage particles – obviously, this is far worse around kitchen and dining areas, or the bedroom if you like breakfast in bed!
2. Airborne carbon – This is more common if you have a fireplace and definitely if you work around, or live near, lots of engine exhaust.
3. Organic soils – another way of saying “dirt,” but the parts that come from formerly living things. Speaking of living things, check out point #4.
4. Organisms, both dead and living – these are the dust mites, fleas, other insects and their eggs.
5. Human hair and skin – obviously, not every household has a pet, or pets, but if you do, their hair, feathers or scales will add to the total and shoot this category higher up the rankings.
6. Petroleum products or grease – airborne grease comes from your kitchen, as can other petroleum products. Plastics breaking down, oil picked up on your shoes – these things are everywhere in our environment, given our dependence on petroleum as a resource.
7. Gum – because when it gets there, it often stays there, or at least leaves something behind. And let’s not forget sap, which probably fits in the organic soils category, but is common in the Redding area and was the first kind of chewing gum!
8. Lint – Your clothes and upholstery constantly shed fibers and these have to go somewhere, and that somewhere is usually your carpet.
9. Non-organic soils – the kind of “dirt” that is not from living things, like sand, clay and other particulates that come from rocks. Non organic and organic soils usually come in together, but it’s the gritty sands and other non-organics that tend to do the most damage to your carpets with their rough edges.

What knocks out #1 through #9 without fail? Get professional steam cleaning from Preferred Carpet Care in Redding! Order your customized carpet cleaning today by calling 530-243-8400 or by contacting us for an appointment online.