Rug Cleaning With Special Rugs in Mind

If you have pets and rugs, you have a bad combination. Rug cleaning is not as simple as taking an area rug outside and beating it with a rug beater the way the early parlor maids had to do before there were such things as electric vacuum cleaners and carpet shampooers. Of course, beating out the dust and dirt did little to get the smell of pets out of the carpet, but it was all they had to work with.

Today, thankfully, we have more modern methods for rug cleaning which make it more realistic and enjoyable to have a pet and carpeting without wishing you only had one of them. Of course not every type of carpeting can be cleaned with hot water and soap under the deep scouring brushes of a carpet cleaner, but that doesn't mean your favorite Oriental rug has to be rolled up and saved for special occasions or not walked on to avoid getting it dirty.

Rug cleaning for higher maintenance carpets is still possible if you know how to go about doing it. You can still use a vacuum cleaner on high maintenance rugs for example to remove the daily traces of dirt and minimize ground in dirt. It is highly recommended in fact that you do so to keep your rug looking its best for as long as possible. And for any type of carpeting, pet or food stains need to be treated promptly to avoid becoming permanent fixtures. Pet urine will ruin the dyes in higher maintenance carpets so it's important that the urine be blotted up immediately before it has time to soak into the carpet and weaken the structure of the carpet or ruin the carpet colors.

For rugs made with a natural material such as silk or rugs that have deeply saturated colors such as an Oriental rug that cannot withstand the rigors of getting wet, the solution for cleaning is chemical instead of water. Many web sites suggest that you can simply throw your Oriental rugs into the washer or use water and soap to address cleaning the rugs occasionally but these suggestions would seem highly counteractive to the care that an Oriental throw rug or specialty rugs require, so unless you bought your carpet at a second hand store or a discount store and want to take the chance on it, it would be better to be cautious and use a dry chemical method to clean your rug.

Chem dry methods use water but not at the same rate that a traditional carpet cleaner does, which can leave your carpet saturated with water and can actually break down your carpet's strength over time. Using a chem dry method uses less water and more steam to break up dirt and remove stains and odors including pet odors so your carpet will smell as clean as it looks and last longer.