Can Carpets Be Sanitized?
A quick guide on how to sanitize and maintain your dust-capturing carpets.
It shouldn’t be a surprise to most but carpets, mats, rugs, and any cloth materials aren’t the best around when it comes to anti-bacterial household items. This is due to the fabric being a nice, cozy place for the dirt and dust to hang out in. Don’t worry, you won’t need to get rid of your carpets or replace your carpet floor because of our common enemy. All we need is some sanitizer and feelings like revenge and vengeance to keep you motivated to scrub away; turning that negative energy to positive energy ‘amirite’? And yes- just so you know carpet cleaning can help seasonal allergies too!
How does dust even get there in the first place?
Well, highly active households, meaning those where there’s a lot of people going in and out of a place is one reason. Another could be dirty filters, AC’s, and slightly opened windows just to name a few. The point is, dust is brought in from the outside by mother nature, a person, or even a pet! And these annoying visitors like to hang out in the hardest to clean places of all like the carpets, curtains, and blinds.
Can’t I Just Vacuum My Carpeting?
You could just vacuum the carpet, but in order to maintain the carpets value and be sure that there aren’t any harmful-lurking agents or virus in there, a thorough clean is needed a couple of times a year. ‘Deep cleaning’ as it’s called, will get your carpet stains out, hold a fresh clean smell, and get rid of bacteria that could harm your internal and external health.
Difference Between Cleaning and Sanitizing Your Carpets
There’s a distinct difference between cleaning and sanitizing anything, which is that sanitizing means you’re going a step deeper in the process. Cleaning usually means your covering the basics like dust-removal, odor-removal, stain-removal, etc. Sanitizing something means you’re trying to get rid of as many germs on a surface as possible. It’s quite easy to confuse the two and it’s a major misconception when it comes down to what you’re actually trying to achieve.
Importance Of Sanitizing Your Small Carpets/Rugs
Let’s get down to business (or more appropriately for this article, the floor). If it’s a small carpet/rug, good news, you’re not getting a workout in. It’s quite simple: Vacuum the top and bottom, place it into your washing machine with a delicate setting (cold water), add some laundry sanitizer and/or bleach, and then throw it into the dryer. You could also dry it by hanging it in your lawn somewhere, picking some apples, and pretending like you’re in a movie while the sun is up.
Learn more about carpet stain removal here before you continue.
Sanitizing Your Bigger Carpets
For the big boys that you had rolled up before they got into the house/building, it’s going to require some more time and effort but nothing too strenuous if you could get a partner to help. First vacuum the top as well as the bottom of the carpet. Then, you’re going to want to find a carpet sanitizer or disinfectant from a local store (like Home Depot) or a website that offers carpet products.
Once you’ve got your product(s), how to go about using them may vary as some can be more specific than others. Typically, you’d want to test the product on a small area on the carpet first, then wait a couple of hours. This is to make sure you’re not going to be messing with the colors or damaging the carpet itself. After you’ve completed a successful test on your carpet, apply the sanitizer across the rest of the carpet. Depending on the instructions, your next step would be using a steam cleaner to proceed with the process safely. Post steamy session, you can then shampoo and wash the carpet to get that clean, fresh-smelling carpet like you bought it yesterday!
How to Maintain Your Clean Carpets
Now that you’ve put in that work, how do you ensure that when your 4-year-old drops the Alfredo penne pasta on the carpets, all that time wasn’t for nothing? I hate to break it to you but you’re going to want to add carpet cleaning to another one of your adult responsibilities they never told you about growing up. It’s just one of those things you have to do every once in a while to keep your lungs healthy, your mind healthy, and another chore your 4-year-old can help with as punishment (please don’t let them do this alone there are dangerous products being used).
Conclusion: Can Carpets Be Sanitized?
While carpets are breeding grounds for germs, virus and bacteria, they can be cleaned and disinfected in a way that can prevent the spread of these harmful virus causing contaminants. Companies such as Carter’s Carpet Restoration offer residential carpet cleaning and commercial carpet cleaning services that can assist in your process of fully sanitizing your home. Carter’s Carpet Restoration is located in El Dorado Hills, CA and has a number of nearby service areas you can check out here.
We hope you now know the answer to can carpets be sanitized and wish you the best of luck.