Cleaning Carpets?!?

kiwichick

Hi All,

Am after some advice here please..................how do I go about cleaning our carpet??

It is quite old and really wants replacing but we have the house up for sale and cant really afford to replace it. Besides that I have 3 kids under 4 and they would get the new one dirty too!

My local dry cleaner hires out a carpet cleaning machine for £20, the solution is another £10. Does anybody know how good a job this would do?

Can I use steam to clean the carpets? I've heard steam cleaners mentioned on here before and it seems you can use them for everything.

The stains are mostly old tea and coffee or ground in dirt from where the kids have tramped in with muddy boots/shoes before I could nab them :mad:

Any help appreciated.
Al.

cozzie

I hired one of those carpet cleaners from an Hire & Supply company and on first impression the carpet looked fantastic, but, after a closer inspection I realised that it had only cleaned the surface. So I did it again whilst still wet from the first time, thinking that this may help it to penetrate deeper, (not even a very deep carpet), but, no more dirt came through into the water tank bit.

I too would be interested to hear about achieveable results from a steam cleaner, especially concerning the pile of the carpet as I found that wetting the carpet with the cleaner has flattened it.

squeaky

Given the hire costs and then the cleaning fluid you might find that getting it done professionally is not a lot dearer. Much less work, hopefully a better job, and somebody to complain to if by any chance it doesn't turn out too well.

Ticklemouse

cozzie - maybe you had a poor machine. I have a vax and have previously hired them I find they get lots of dirt out and make the carpets look good again. Mine always raise the pile too. Ok, they won't be as good as getting a professional in, but anyone buying a family home which has older carpets in isn't really going to expect them to look like new.

If you just want the house to look presentable, then a hired one should do a reasonable job. If the carpets need replacing, then the new people will probably do that anyway. I haven't used a steam cleaner on carpets, so don't know about their stain removing abilities.

Ticklemouse

To give you an idea of costs, I recently had a professional in to do some carpets. I had my dining room, 1 bedroom done thoroughly, 1 bedroom just the main traffiked areas and my dining room chairs cleaned. I ahem... paid cash - £50 and he did do a fab job.

Please do NOT be tempted to get one of these companies that put the flyers out in the local papers - "your whole house cleaned for £30" etc. I did this when I was in your postion before my last move. The cheap complete house clean is nothing more than a good hoover with some shake and vac. They will get you to have a deeper clean - which is [email="cr@p"]!!!!!![/email] - my stains reappeared within a week. This was also confirmed by some 'proper' professional carpet cleaners I know. They truly are a false economy.

angelatgraceland

Look in your local ads/papers and see if anyone is selling a carpet cleaner. Ask your friends-beg and borrow. I have a bissell proheat but it cos me £199. Fantastic it is though. Steam cleaning works and is cheap as no cleaning chemicals needed. If its bad tho it may be hard work. Put out a couple of "want ads" locally-Ive been quite lucky by doing this.