Save money on carpet cleaning

[mahon73]

A home-made carpet cleaning solution that will save you money with household ingredients (great for baby or pet messes):

1 tablespoon of laundry detergent (anyone will do)
2 tablespoons of vinegar
1 quart water.

Spray on stain.
Let sit (longer for tougher stains)
dab with a moist cloth.

[fairy74]

I and the darling doggies thank you!

[gptmca]

I recently had to get my carpets cleaned after looking after my sister's dog for a week. I had purchased many products from the supermarket to try remove the stains where the dog had some accidents. Nothing seemed to work, the products themeselves seemed to leave more stains and so gradually there was a big ring appearing in the carpet around where the original stain was.

When the carpet cleaning man was cleaning the carpet, he was amazed at how much soap foam was coming off the carpet from where I had cleaned. He said this was what was causing the bad staining (dry soap and detergent), he advised that in future I should only use water and that on wool carpets thats really all that should be needed.

[Oliver21]

Is it time to clean your carpets again? It just seemed like last season that the carpet guy was in your home! In reality, if you are like most consumers, a once or twice yearly cleaning of your carpets is all that is necessary. If you have a lot of carpets, particularly carpets with a thick pile or oriental rugs, then you know that your cleaning costs can skyrocket accordingly. You don’t have to pay full price for carpet cleaning services; keep reading and I’ll tell you how you can save.

[sparkysgirl]

I've used straight vinegar for stains and half vinegar and half water for my carpet cleaning and had no problems ..

[PRICEPLUS]

Do you need to do this if your carpets have stain protection sprayed on them?

[eyotadanes]

My husband is a professional flooring installer, and he often mentions that carpet cleaning (the big steam cleaning systems) ruin more carpet because the more often you have your carpets cleaned, the more they stretch and wrinkle.

So be aware that it's often more beneficial to do spot cleaning whenever possible and do the big full carpet cleaning only once a year if you feel it absolutely has to be done.

He spends more time repairing wrinkles and stretches in the spring after people do their "spring cleaning" and have their carpets cleaned.

And just another hint... for linoleum... white vinegar in water does a wonderful job of cleaning linoleum. And it's REALLY cheap! Just be sure to rinse with clear, clean water.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Unfortunately if your dog has the runs that homemade stuff doesn't works so well for the smell. I use it mostly for vomit, but well the runs, I have to use nature's miracle only way to get rid of the smell. I spot clean with the little green steam cleaner, best investment of time. I broke my other one since I used it for 5+ years.

Trust me my stupid dogs pretty much have made it impossible for me to have carpet. So I'm going to put in hardwood again in the bedroom and laydown cheap rugs so I can throw it away all the time. I usually pick up stuff other people are throwing out and vaccum it and then my dogs can do their business on it and I don't care. And yes they are housebroken, but for some reason they get sick about 1-2 year.

[eyotadanes]

Have you tried an enzyme cleaner? I use Baczymes and it works wonders, not only on the stains, but on the odor.

My little dog passed away back in October after battling osteosarcoma (bone cancer). She had been doing quite well and one evening we left for about an hour and a half and came home to find her laying in the middle of the living room floor (carpet) in a large pool of blood. She had started bleeding profusely from her nose... the Baczymes cleaned up the blood with no problems. Can't even tell where it was (although I will say that our carpet is brown - not dark brown, but not beige either. Sort of a light "chocolate" color.) With 4 Great Danes in the house, we get a LOT of mud tracked in, and slobber thrown around, but I've had no problems keeping the carpet clean using enzymes rather than "cleaners".

And no, I've not shampooed our carpet at all in the three years we've had it - hubby refuses to let me... so we just vacuum religiously. And spot clean where necessary. Not only does it eliminate the wrinkle/stretch issue, but our carpet doesn't wear out as quickly - even with traffic from over 600# of Great Danes and 2 humans.

[mcterp]

I am making a guess that the laundry detergent is liquid. Can you use dry?

Thanks

[mammara]

Sounds like a great idea. Where can you purchase Baczyme.

[Rick01]

I cleaned carpets for kiwi service for quite a while, and I can tell that using any type of detergent on your carpet is a bad idea. Vinegar, or especially baking soda (baking soda is a cleaner) work great. Never detergent though.

[Aleta]

Rick01: I heard the same thing. We rented a RugDoctor and bought their rug cleaner. They have instructions that say if you use a cleaner with suds that you need to use another different type that will difuse the suds action. I've heard the same that vinegar is great to use the 2nd time to clean your carpets.

[ScrimpAndSave]

Great idea! Thanks!