How Often Should I Clean My Area Rugs?

Well, according to the experts in the cleaning and restoration industry there are several things that should be taken into consideration when making a decision about how often area rugs and carpets should be cleaned – traffic, whether or not there are pets in the home, quantities of soils, spot cleaning, vacuuming schedules, and more.

The general rule, based on common sense and recent research, is that rug owners ought to have their rugs professionally cleaned at least once a year, and more often if the rugs are heavily trafficked. But for homes with indoor pets, those who have allergies or respiratory illnesses, and smoking households, the area rugs should be cleaned every six to 12 months if not more frequently.

It’s always essential to adhere to the recommendations of the carpet manufacturer as far as the cleaning schedule as this is an initial requirement to keep the warranty of the carpet valid.

Besides using a professional rug cleaner, you should also have your rug cleaned annually, semi-annually or quarterly every 3 months in conjunction with regular vacuuming and rotating the rug every 6 months, for additional beauty and balanced wear.

Why You Should Keep Your Rug Well-maintained

Carpets cleaning is important due to a variety of factors listed here:

• This helps extend the life of the rug enormously.
• Rugs act as giant filters for our air, collecting all kinds of airborne pollutants like dust, drinking fountains, and bacteria, which prevents us from breathing in that junk but like all filters they need to be cleaned for optimal air quality both rug and indoor quality.
• Most rug soils are dry. With regular weekly vacuuming, you can carry out regular vacuuming for your area rug it’s a good way to remove most dry soils. As such, the carpet is much easier to keep.
• Cleaning a rug will remove preexisting spots and stains, both of which will tend to attract additional soil, just like any other type of soil.
• 90% of all dirt in an area rug is trapped in the rug (see figure on left) and can contribute to the growth of bacteria and allergens. Regular cleaning of your carpet helps prevent the build up of these contaminants.
• A clean rug looks good adds appeal to the entirety of the room, and says a lot about the overall cleanliness of the rest of the home (or building).
• When there is a rug in an office, you must need to insure that it is clean as it can positively influence employee morale. Everyone prefers working in a clean environment (with the carpeting included).
• Frequent cleaning plays a crucial role in eradicating bed bugs and dust mites which can move from the beds to almost any part of the home.

Rug manufacturers recommend you clean your area rug every 12-18 months, and every 2 years you should rotate your rug 180 degrees to insure even wear.

Cleaning your rug regularly, with the proper method, will contribute to a long life for the rug, and prevent the rug from looking aged before its time.

Pet Owners and Rug Cleaning

Pets make the best companions and are so adorable, yet they can really make a mess of the carpets, whether it is because they have not yet been trained to go to the bathroom outside, or that they are tracking mud and dirt through the house.

Urine incidents are no stranger inside the home of pet owners and quite frankly it is a tough stain to obliterate without the assistance of a professional rug cleaner as it seeps into the rug’s fibers and filters through to the bottom of the surface as well.

Meanwhile, when there’s humidity, the dried stain gives off the smell once more and again.

They can wreck your rug, and lets face it, you’ll be no better off than with a bleached rug and unsightly uneven patches of cleaned rug that still stinks.

In addition to smell, pet urine, feces and vomit stains are almost always permanent once they are left untreated for an extended period. Please note that all stripping and bleaching agents can cause quite a bit of harm to your rug’s fibers and any stain removal process should be very careful if you don’t want to make the situation worse.

Another thing, if a rug is constantly being exposed to urine stains, it will start to bleed (loose it’s color, just washes out) as pet urine stain go from acidic to alkaline and does a lot of destruction to acid rug dyes.

Plus, the cotton foundation fibers will start decomposing after long time of pet urine exposure and it’s irreversible. The same goes for when there are plants placed on top of the urine-stained rugs.

The rugs degrade slowly until you have a large hole in the rug. So, always try to check the back of a rug to look for mildew (which can be stiff and/or dark) to signs of dry rot, particularly if you have a pet who puddles in the same area of the rug.

Tips for Pet Owners

Opt for a woven or even a synthetic rather than tufted.

You might want to select a busy design so the urine stains or any other won’t be noticeable. Professional area rug cleaners will be able to clean you area rug, but even if they say they can get the urine stain out, it’s unlikely (unless you have not yet dried it and it has been less than a day or two) that the urine stains will come out.

Use a pad to get protected protection in the worst-case scenario. This is the point where pet urine soaks further into your flooring and can be a serious issue where the floor would need to be replaced, especially if you’re dealing with hardwood floors.

Families with Small Children

Kids running all over the house is indeed joy. Sure, accidents do occur in rugs frequently, and whether it’s spilled juices, crayons, markers, paint, baby formulas, milk, jelly, gum and so on, there are plenty water/stains using oil – and such stains can be visible if the ones using oil or grease get trapped in the fibers of the fabric.

A large part of the concept can be a bit abstract for small children, for example doing fine work with a pair of scissors, or the idea that craft materials should be kept tidy. The outcome is a floor covering, imbued with their artistic talents and all livened up by unlimited energy.

In order to keep the rugs soil free, it is essential to keep the place clean for them to play, live and grow up in. Otherwise, kids aren’t alone in making a mess of the rugs.

In a house full of people (and adults with busy lives) rugs (particularly the ones in the dining room) get really dirty, from wine and all beverages, salad dressing, chocolate, mayonnaise, and food. With all those dye stains, carpet cleaning feels like it’s never going to end.

If you can treat a stain at its birth that would be the next best thing because a permanent stain is what you want to avoid. But how convenient is that to look after your kids and ensure that the dirty marks from the rugs are removed properly at the same time?

Health hazards from DJ irty Rugs

These mats can be dangerous to your health if they aren’t cleaned often enough. Nothing sounds more benign than a dirty rug, but in reality, it’s a whole universe of fungi and irritants and menacing microbes that can sicken you. Its harmless appearance aside, a dirty rug can lead to the following:

Respiratory Problems

Dirty carpets are solid homes to bacteria that you don’t need in your home, namely, dust mites, mold and volatile organic compounds which all reproduce like wild overnight in bits like dust, human skin and pet hair.

Rugs that have dirt in them are quickly kicked up into the air and then breathed in when you walk on them, resulting in breathing problems.

The subsequent health problems can vary from minor coughing and cold-like illnesses like a runny nose, to serious allergies and asthma attacks. In addition, these volatile compounds detected in dirty rugs have been considered the cause of asthma in well people who had not been diagnosed with asthma.

And when mold reproduces in dirty carpets, it churns out unhealthy mycotoxins that contaminate air inside the house. It has been demonstrated that the chronic exposure to mycotoxins leads to a range of negative conditions, including hypersensitivity and many more.

Skin Infection

Skin reactions: You may develop redness on the skin, swelling, or itching (redness, swelling, or itchiness) mainly due to those irritants (living and non-living) the carpets have been hoarding. And if you have another house pet, like rat or roach, pets like these are also attracted to the particles of a dirty rug’s fibres and they have a germ of their own. The whole family is then exposed to even more disease causing microbes.

Another regular skin ailment caused by dirty plugs is athlete’s foot, which is massively uncomfortable. It is an infectious fungal infection that is acquired when you walk barefoot on a rug and the fungi that are infesting it, happens to catch you. The various breaks, scratches and cuts that you have on your skin provide a safe entryway for fungi to get in there and get your system all itchy on a chronic basis.

Allergies

Again, pet hair, dust, small insects and fungi spores are some of the most common allergens that are found on a dirty rug as mentioned earlier. Those with allergies will immediately face difficult and awkward natural reactions to the allergens that are being licked up and inhaled when they walk on the dirty rig: sneezing, itchy skin, and lethargy.

Increased Stress Levels

And living in an unclean environment is now known to increase stress. Stress doesn’t lead directly to health problems, but excessive stress can make you (and everyone in the household or workplace) more vulnerable to disease since it suppresses the immune system.

It’s common knowledge that stress can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

Final Thoughts

For all those reasons, don’t neglect the care of your carpet, which is best cleaned by a professional service that can address all kinds of rug problems, at least once a year, for a clean and healthy home or other building to provide you and your loved ones with several benefits.