Author Topic: Carpet cleaning with a mustache  (Read 4977 times)

ENL

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Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« on: April 13, 2015, 07:55:04 AM »
My family and I just moved from a house with laminate flooring in most of the rooms to a condo with mostly carpeting.  Our toddler, dog and two cats are doing a number on the carpeting.  So far we have had five separate accidents that required me to get down on my hands and knees and exert considerable effort to clean up... and we have only lived in the place a month.  Not so much fun considering I am eight months pregnant.  I'm sure the new baby will also be contributing once he arrives.

I am considering buying a portable carpet cleaner like this one to not only protect my sanity and time, but also because I fear that manually cleaning this stuff is not going to be as effective as using a tool.  I don't want to live in a house that smells of various pet and baby bodily fluids. 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008DBRFBK

Is there better and or cost efficient way to deal with the mess?  Please consider that we are trying to work our way out of some credit card debit on a teacher's salary so money is pretty tight in our situation.  At the same time I'd like our security deposit back one day too.

Basically, I need preemptive face punches if this is an unwise purchase.  Go to it.  :-)

jackiechiles2

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Re: Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2015, 08:32:34 AM »
I worked for a carpet cleaning company in college and they always scoffed at portable carpet cleaners.  Their main reason was that the portable carpet cleaners did not have the suction power to get much of the water out of the carpet and pad that you put in to clean it.   Professional carpet cleaners have a machine that costs around $15k that is mounted on a truck that has vastly superior suction power.  Maybe it was propaganda, but the people that worked there believed it.

Theoretically, you're supposed to get your carpet cleaned professionally every 6 months or so, but barely anyone follows that. 

For stains, I would say at least use this product combined with whatever else you decide:

http://interlinksupply.com/index.php?item_num=CS07GL

I've seen it get stains out of carpet that I never thought would come out. Maybe it's just a placebo, but it's what professional carpet cleaners use to get stains out of your carpet. 

Sibley

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Re: Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2015, 08:36:36 AM »
I've never had a carpet cleaner, but a healthy cat should not have accidents. Feel free to PM me if a cat is having accidents, we can discuss and maybe get you a solution. Dogs, I have no clue, make sure the dog gets outside frequently enough?

Toddlers - the best you can do is probably to limit all food/drink to the kitchen/designated eating area for the entire family. Would be hell to enforce I'm guessing, but effective. Food/drink is probably a decent amount of what's getting on your carpets from the kid.

Trede

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Re: Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2015, 08:45:17 AM »
Your mileage may vary, but I personally swear by this stuff:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Capture-4-lb-Carpet-and-Rug-Dry-Cleaner-3000006683/202820689

It's a dry powder you buff in and then vacuum up.  There's a pretreating spray too that I sometimes use and sometimes don't.  I have mostly carpet in my house, and I've used this to great effect on mud tracks from our golden retriever each Spring and Fall as well as both dog and cat occasional vomit stains.  Be sure to test an inconspicuous area for any color changes.  We've got light-colored carpet and I've had no issues.

ENL

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Re: Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2015, 08:51:34 AM »
I've never had a carpet cleaner, but a healthy cat should not have accidents. Feel free to PM me if a cat is having accidents, we can discuss and maybe get you a solution. Dogs, I have no clue, make sure the dog gets outside frequently enough?

Toddlers - the best you can do is probably to limit all food/drink to the kitchen/designated eating area for the entire family. Would be hell to enforce I'm guessing, but effective. Food/drink is probably a decent amount of what's getting on your carpets from the kid.

Sibley, the animals do not have any ongoing health issues and the dog is let out plenty.  Most of the issues have been with one of the cats puking (which she has always done with some frequency.  I have mentioned it to the vet and it is not indicative of anything wrong.) the dog had some diarrhea when he got into some garbage. Our male cat also pees outside the box on purpose when he is stressed.  As he was when we moved.

Our son eats and drinks in the kitchen which is tiled.  The one mess we had from him so far was him grabbing a container of salsa from the fridge and opening it in the living room before I realized what was happening. 
« Last Edit: April 13, 2015, 09:31:00 AM by Evil Number Lady »

Mother Fussbudget

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Re: Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2015, 09:48:47 AM »
You're better off with a self-drive steam cleaning carpet cleaner like this one. 
     http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DBTOVXO/ref=psdc_1063922_t2_B001BYW3KY
I got one off CraigsList for $35 with a broken belt.  A new belt was $3 (Amazon) - best CraigsList deal I ever got.  My son used it over the summer to earn extra money for his 'college fund'. 

Candace

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Re: Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2015, 09:54:01 AM »
I've had a similar product for a couple of decades. I drag it out whenever there's a need. I think it's great. I have two cats, and in the past also had cats who puked regularly. I don't know why some cats do that without being sick, but they do. This kind of product probably doesn't have the suction of the professional ones, but I'm certainly not going to get my carpets cleaned every time there's an accident, so this is the best I'm going to do. I think it's better than what I can do by getting on my hands and knees with Oxy-Clean or whatever.

I also try to use the cleaner around once every year or so to clean larger areas of carpet in high-use areas. Sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn't. When I buy carpet, I go for the best stain-resistant carpet I can reasonably get, and also get the pads that have the extra wet-dry boundary. So when and if something does happen, I have the best chance of saving the carpet.

I moved into my house two years ago. The carpets were way past when they should have been replaced. I only replaced carpet in the master bedroom, since that's where I am every night and morning, and the other rooms are mostly unused and closed off. The other rooms will just have to wait.

TrMama

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Re: Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2015, 09:54:18 AM »
I've never had the number of pets that you have, but I've found the cheapest way to keep my carpets clean is to just periodically rent a carpet cleaner from the hardware or grocery store. For $30 and an hour and a half of my time it does a pretty good job.

vulgar_girl

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Re: Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2015, 09:59:21 AM »
I have a toddler and a cat so I get it.  I love my carpet cleaner.  In fact I just did my carpets yesterday.  I have one like this http://hoover.com/products/details/f5912900/steamvac-spinscrub-turbopower-carpet-washer/.  After about 3/4 years I had to replace a part costing about $50 and it was back up and running again (you can read about that ordeal here http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/do-it-yourself-forum!/can%27t-sell-you-parts-due-to-safety-reasons/msg572114/#msg572114).

We have carpet everywhere in our apartment, even in the dining room, and it is off white.  I am sure it does not do as good a job as a professional cleaner, but it has kept my carpet in relatively good condition.

MsPeacock

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Re: Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« Reply #9 on: April 13, 2015, 10:59:24 AM »
I had a little portable carpet cleaner and it was so handy when my kids were little.

Then I got a dog.... and I got a big carpet cleaner from Craigslist for substantially less than they cost new. It does work far better than the portable one. So, I would recommend a used one first, if you can find it, and if not get the portable one because they are useful for numerous small clean-ups.


sol

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Re: Carpet cleaning with a mustache
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2015, 11:06:03 AM »
Decent home carpet cleaner can be had for under a hundred dollars. 

We find that the cleanliness of our carpets is much more related to how often we actually clean them than it is to the quality of the machine we use, so the key is to get something you'll actually use.  With that in min, when our big heavy one died we replaced it with something much lighter and easier to use and now I carpet clean monthly.  We have to vacuum really well before using it, though.