Just How Clean is Your Carpet?

Does your carpet look clean to you? Looks are deceptive, with the average carpet holding 4 times its own weight in dirt and being 4,000 times dirtier than your toilet seat. If those figures have you reaching for the vacuum cleaner, stop – the air blowing out when you hoover makes it one of the 5 dirtiest places in your home!

What’s trapped in my carpet?

What’s trapped in your carpet

The list of nasties that get trapped in your carpet is like a who’s who of grime, with pet hair and urine, dust mites, dirt, dead skin cells and bacteria including salmonella and listeria among them. Your carpet is the biggest air filter in the home, trapping pollen and dangerous Volatile Organic Compounds in its fibres.

How dirt gets into your carpet

How does it get there?

75% of us say we never take our shoes off in the home, meaning we’re walking all kinds of mud and dirt into the fibres. And we’re not very hygienic when it comes to spot cleaning stains, with 70% of us preferring to move our furniture around to cover up a mark rather than clean up a spill.

Are you one of the 90% of carpet owners who are happy to eat food that they’ve dropped on the carpet? Not only are you contributing to the general detritus trapped in the fibres of your carpet but you’re at risk of illness because bacteria can live for 4 weeks – which means the 5 second rule really doesn’t apply!

What about vacuuming?

No one’s denying that a good vacuum isn’t essential to keep your carpet looking cosmetically clean, but it won’t touch deep down dirt. And when you start blowing all those nasties back into the air you can cause a health hazard, especially for those with allergies and respiratory problems.

Why a proper deep clean matters

Nothing cleans like a deep clean

Commercial carpet cleaning in Gloucester or wherever you live is the ideal solution to the problem of those unseen undesirables in your carpet. Choose a reputable company like https://www.clean-able.co.uk/ who’ll have the equipment and technology to remove stains and deep down dirt and leave your carpet looking brighter and cleaner.

You’ll extend the life of your carpet and also protect your children and animals from possible infection from insects and hidden bacteria. Nothing cleans your carpets like a deep clean, giving you confidence in your hygienic home.

Common carpet cleaning myths

Plenty of people put off a deep clean because of things they have heard. One is that wet cleaning shrinks carpet. A carpet left soaking for a long time can shrink, but a professional clean applies only a little moisture and removes it with strong suction, so it dries quickly.

Another myth is that carpets get dirty faster after cleaning. That only happens when the wrong products are used or they are not rinsed out of the fibres, because the residue attracts dirt. Methods also vary between cleaners, and a cheaper job may only freshen the top layer without making it any more hygienic.

A deep clean does not replace vacuuming either. Keep vacuuming regularly for crumbs, dust and pet hair, and give the carpet a thorough vacuum before the cleaner arrives. Nor should you wait for stains, since hidden dirt and allergens such as pollen build up whether you can see them or not.

Summary

This article looks at how dirty carpets really are, citing figures on trapped dirt, bacteria and pollutants, and explains how everyday habits such as not removing shoes and vacuuming alone contribute to the problem. It recommends professional deep cleaning to remove the dirt that regular vacuuming cannot reach.

Questions this article raises

• How often should carpets be professionally deep cleaned?
• Are certain carpet materials more hygienic than others?
• Can regular vacuuming alone ever be enough to keep a carpet clean?