Please, never scrub your carpet

Please, never scrub your carpet!

Professional carpet cleaners have many tools for the trade.  We carry a truck load of wands, hoses, rags, buckets, buffers, black lights, moisture sensors, cleaning agents, spotters, vacuum cleaners and sprayers.  That is just for carpet cleaning.  Let’s not talk about upholstery or Oriental rug cleaning.  However, there is one thing that we almost never use.

We almost never use a brush.

The lowly carpet “scrub wand” as it is known, has no brushes.  It has a smooth stainless steel lip at the suction end.  No real scrubbing there.

We carry a brush with our spotting paraphernalia, but it is only to be used to tamp the spotting agent into the spot.  So what is the deal!

Ok, here is the reason why.  Carpet fibers will fray and permanently distort if you scrub or rub then too much.  If you are trying to remove a spot, do not scrub.  It does not help much anyway, trust me.  If you scrub and are lucky enough to remove the spot, there will be a permanently visible distorted area of carpet that cannot be fixed by cleaning.

So what do you do?  This is why you hear so much about “blotting”.  Apply you favorite spotting agent and give it time to work.  Then put a clean dry rag on top of the spot.  Step on it with your shoe and firmly press down.  Do not rotate your foot or “scrub”.  Remember, you are blotting which uses the rag to draw the cleaning agent and the spot out of the carpet.   Remember, never scrub your carpet.

You can also read my earlier blog post about using a wet dry vacuum to remove pet spots.  This can work for any spot and requires no scrubbing.

Barry Click

Green Solutions Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning LLC

540-705-6171

www.GreenSolutionsCleaning.net

www.CarpetCleaningHarrisonburg.com

www.Harrisonburgrugcleaning.com

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