Like any other interior textile, carpets accumulate dust, absorb odors, and get dirty easily. Careful handling and regular vacuuming will help preserve the beauty of the carpet for longer, but at least once a year it needs to be cleaned more thoroughly. The folk methods and tools described in our article will help you with this.
Even with the most careful handling, the pile of the carpet will fade and lie down over time. This is due to the dust that accumulates in it, which cannot be removed by a regular vacuum cleaner.
If there are small children or pets in the house, the speed of carpet contamination accelerates several times. Paints, plasticine, marks and traces of dirty paws, stains from food or drinks - these and many other types of dirt remain on the pile. Removing them immediately after they appear will make annual cleaning easier for you, but will not eliminate the need to do it.
In addition, the carpet may develop an unpleasant odor. The cause is bacteria that settle deep in the pile due to dampness or dirt. And dust mites can settle in a dusty carpet, causing allergies in people prone to them.
The rules for carpet care are simple:
When using powdered cleaning agents for long pile carpets, remove them from the pile with a vacuum cleaner with a special nozzle for long pile - this will save you time and effort.
If we talk directly about cleaning, then unless absolutely necessary, it is better not to use gasoline, acetone, alcohol and other aggressive agents, under the influence of which the pile may become deformed or fade.
To prepare a soap solution for washing or removing greasy stains, use cool water unless otherwise specified in the method description. It is also important to prepare the necessary cleaning tools in advance.
It is ideal if you have a washing vacuum cleaner at home: using a specialized shampoo or gel concentrate, you will wash the carpet well.
But if you don’t have such equipment at home, it’s not a problem, you can carpet cleaning with improvised means. To clean the carpet, you will need:
You won't need some items from this list - it all depends on the composition of the product, its form (liquid, paste or powder) and the method of application.
In this article, we will mainly consider folk remedies, as they are more accessible and safer than industrial preparations. With the exception of the most neglected cases, home methods allow you to clean most household dirt - if you use them correctly.
Most folk recipes involve the use of ingredients such as:
Some of them are used on their own to remove stains or to freshen up the pile, while others are more effective when used in multi-component mixtures.
Traditional methods are considered more gentle on the color and structure of the pile, but do not forget to first test their effect on an inconspicuous area.
If the method involves moistening the pile, thorough drying of the carpet after cleaning is a must. Drying can be accelerated by blotting the pile with a cloth or napkins, opening windows and doors, turning on a fan or dehumidifier. We do not recommend using a heater near the carpet - the pile or warp threads may become deformed due to uneven drying and temperature effects.
An alternative for light carpets is corn starch, used in a similar way. For dark items, used tea leaves are preferable: squeeze the leaves well and spread them evenly over the pile, rubbing them in lightly. Wait until it dries, and vacuum up the tea leaves.
The advantage of these methods is their ease of use. Salt, soda, starch and tea leaves clean out dust that has become lodged deep in the pile, and restore color and shine to dull pile. But if there are old stains on the carpet, dry cleaning is powerless against them.
If you dissolve 100 g of soda in 5 liters of water at room temperature, you can use this product to wash away grease and greasy pile. Also, a water-soda solution removes foreign odors more effectively than powdered soda.
Spray the liquid on the pile, leave for half an hour, collect excess moisture with a cloth or paper towel, vacuum the carpet. To remove stubborn stains, you can additionally use soda paste: add a little water to a small amount of dry soda to get a viscous paste. Apply it to the most contaminated areas, wait until it dries, sweep with a brush or broom.
Instead of baking soda, you can use soda ash, but then the waiting time after spraying the solution on the carpet is reduced by half - to 15 minutes.
Dissolve 1 tablespoon of salt and citric acid in 1 liter of cool water. Spray or apply the resulting solution to the carpet with a sponge, brush in the direction of the pile. There is no need to rinse the product - wait half an hour, blot excess moisture, dry the rug and vacuum it.
This composition refreshes the color (especially for light-colored items) and disinfects the pile well, so it is advisable to use it to remove food odors from carpets if they are not harmed by getting wet.
Dissolve 5 g of soap shavings in 0.5 l of lukewarm water, apply this product to the carpet pile. Wait 10 minutes, rinse the soap off the carpet with clean water. Repeat the procedure if necessary, and after washing, collect excess moisture and dry the carpet thoroughly.
If the pile seems sticky after drying, wipe it with a water-vinegar solution (1 tablespoon of 9% vinegar per 1 liter of cool water), and then dry it again.
A soap solution is a good remedy against greasy pile and accumulated dust. Laundry soap can be replaced with liquid soap without dyes, but the effectiveness of the resulting product is slightly reduced.
A water-vinegar solution restores the pile's color and shine, removes foreign odors, and removes most household stains.
A solution of 1 tablespoon of vinegar in 1 liter of water will help refresh the pile. Apply the liquid with a soft brush, vacuum the carpet after drying.
This article does not cover all possible folk methods for cleaning carpets from stains and dirt. But we hope that among the described means you will find a suitable option and return your favorite carpet to its original appearance.