When you’re trying to keep a home warm and clean while also raising children and caring for pets, the carpets may start to feel like a lost cause. Between family traffic, everyday dirt and grime, and then the spills and mishaps that happen with children and pets, the carpets are sure to look dingy and dirty quickly.
While your carpets still need to be vacuumed and cleaned regularly, you can do things to lessen the amount of time you have to spend on them and lengthen the amount of time you can go between deep cleanings.
Here are five tips to help you keep your carpets looking new despite having children and pets.
- Stop wearing shoes in the house. Even when they’re not noticeably muddy, shoes track in dirt, sand, and debris from outside into your home and onto your carpets. They also significantly contribute to carpets wearing down faster in high traffic areas.
- Vacuum regularly. This one may seem a bit obvious, but the more frequently you vacuum, the less time there is for dirt to build up and make the carpet look dingy and worn out. Even if you aren’t able to vacuum every area of carpeting every day, focus on the high traffic areas first. Then, when you have time vacuum the areas that don’t get a lot of traffic and the areas that get no traffic such as under and behind furniture.
- Clean out the filter in your vacuum regularly. Regardless of the type of vacuum you own, it has a filter that works to catch all the dust and particulars being swept up so that they don’t work their way back into the air and onto your carpet. There’s no point in vacuuming if you’re doing it with a dirty filter because the dirt is just being cycled back into the carpet in other areas.
- Use baking soda when you vacuum to make it smell as good as it looks. Baking soda is known for keeping the refrigerator smelling fresh. Its power can work in other areas as well. Once a week, sprinkle baking soda on the carpet. Let it sit for 10 minutes, and then vacuum it up. It will work to capture particles that cause smells, and when you vacuum, all those particles get swept up with the baking soda.
- Treat stains immediately. The longer you wait to treat a stain, the harder it’s going to be to get rid of. What you use on the stain will depend entirely on what created the stain. However, it’s also essential to never try to rub something out of the carpet. All you’ll accomplish is pushing the stain further into the carpet. The longer the substance sits on the carpet, the more likely it will be to leave a permanent stain. Encourage your kids to report spills and stains as soon as they happen instead of hiding them, hoping to avoid punishment.
Getting your carpets deep-cleaned at least twice a year will also go a long way toward keeping them looking fresh and clean. It will also help keep your home smelling nice and clean. While you can rent a carpet cleaner from a home supply store, they’re not always the best quality. They’re heavy and often hard to use. By the time you rent and buy everything you need, and waste an entire day lugging it around your house, you’ll realize you would’ve been better off hiring a professional to do it for you.
You can search for carpet cleaning Orlando to find the best options in the Orlando area or wherever you’re living.
