How to Get Slime Out of Carpet

Girl lying on clean white carpet in front of white couch holding TV remote
blue woven carpet icon

Here’s How to Get Slime Out of Carpet

Removing Slime From Your Carpet Safely Doesn’t Have to Be Difficult

Uh oh. Slime! Everywhere we look, kids are obsessed with Slime.

It’s fun the play with, we don’t blame them. But now, as a parent, it’s a little bit less fun because the stuff gets everywhere and you’ve got to figure out how to clean it up!

Is Slime Your Worst Carpet Cleaning Nightmare!?!

Someone spilled some slime on your carpet and now you’ve got to figure out how to remove it. Don’t fret, it’s probably not as big a deal as you think. You’re not going to have to rip up your carpet. Even if you need to remove dried slime from the carpet, it shouldn’t be a problem.

teal slime divider

Let’s First Dissect What Slime is Made From

Slime is typically going to be a mixture of:

  • glue
  • food coloring
  • water
  • starch
  • glitter

Fun to play with, not as fun to clean up. The glue is going to bond to your carpet fibers and food coloring is going to initially stain them. So, you need something that’s going to break down the glue, first and foremost, as well as to remove the pigment from the food coloring.

bottle of glue with orange cap covered in white glue

First Things First, Let’s Tackle the Glue

You’ve got a lot of choices when it comes to solvents (which is what you’re going to need to break down the adhesive glue). You could use vinegar, rubbing alcohol, Goo Gone (or something like it), etc.

There are plenty of other things that would dissolve the glue as well that you DON’T want to use. Like gasoline or WD40. We recommend vinegar as a safe solvent that’s easy to work with. It won’t potentially damage your carpet backing (like a Goo Gone type product could).

Besides, you probably already have it in your kitchen. Before we move on… a quick but important tip on why you don’t want to use WD40!

A Quick Note On WD40 Before We Move On

WD40 seems to be all the rage for the magic all-in-one carpet cleaning miracle if you ask Pinterest or a number of online blogs. Take it from a carpet cleaner; you don’t want to put this stuff on your carpet!

We get calls all the time from people who “cleaned their carpet spots with WD40 and now have a stain.

Here’s the issue: while WD40 does a good job of removing some spots, it leaves behind an oily residue (the SDS sheets show that approximately 25% of the makeup of WD40 is mineral oil).

This residue is going to attract dirt like a magnet and your “clean” spot is now going to be a permanent dirt magnet until someone professionally cleans the very hard to rinse oil spot. Choose a solvent without oil in it to clean your carpet spots, or you’re going to just trade one problem for another!

 

Oil Can
teal slime divider

Step by Step Guide on How to Get Slime Out of Carpet

Step 1 – Carefully Scrape Away Any Excess Slime

Take a spoon or similar blunt edged scraper and remove as much of the slime as you can. Be careful not to be too aggressive so as not to rip up the carpet fibers while you’re working the slime stains.

Metal spoon to be used as a scraping tool

Step 2 – Apply Vinegar

Take your standard white vinegar out of the cabinet. Pour vinegar liberally on to the remaining slime spot. You don’t need to drown it, but we’re not talking a few drops here either.

Your goal is to remove the slime from the carpet, so get after it! Allow the vinegar do it’s thing for 3 minutes or so.

Vinegar in a Beaker

Step 3 – Agitate and Remove Excess With a Scraper… A Spoon Works Well

Whenever you’re dealing with carpet spotting and stains, you don’t want to aggressively scrub the carpet. Your goal is to gently remove the substance from the carpet. This time is no different.

Using a metal spoon, gently scrape the vinegar slime mixture to one side of the slime spot. Pick up the slop and wipe it off on a paper towel or white rag. Repeat until you’ve picked it all up.

Metal spoon to be used as a scraping tool

Step 4 – Rinse With Hot Water

Apply hot water to the slimed area and blot up the remainder. Use a clean white towel or even paper towels. Rinse thoroughly. Repeat as needed.

Pouring hot water out of a glass

Step 5 – Repeat if Needed

If there is still slime after the rinsing, go back to step one and repeat the process again.

Step 6 – Tackle the Food Coloring (if Needed)

If color remains on the carpet from the food coloring, you have to tackle that. If there isn’t any color left, skip this step.

What to Use to Remove Color

Option 1

If you’ve got some of our Home Pro Spotter that we hand out to our customers for free, this is the right stuff to use. As an alternative, Spray and walk away works pretty well too. Apply the solution, agitate into the carpet, blot with a towel and rinse. Blot the rinsed area with a clean towel, then put a fan next to it to help the spot dry.

Option 2

If you don’t have Home Pro Spotter and don’t want to buy it/wait for it to arrive, you can use your standard carpet cleaning solution spray available at the store. Resolve, Oxi, whatever… with this one caveat… RINSE IT OUT.

As much as these companies claim their solution will not bleach out your carpet or leave a residue, if you leave the solution in your carpet without thoroughly rinsing it out, it may. We’ve seen it. Frequently.

Also, when you do go to clean your carpets, that dried residue foams like crazy and your carpet cleaning company is going to be really annoyed. So when you use these products, apply, blot, and then rinse it out a few times.

If you’ve got a little handheld spot cleaner… We like this one:

green sparkly slime

this little machine is a great choice for this project and for many other spot removal efforts. If this doesn’t work, jump to the next step. If not, go to step 8.

Step 7 – Try Rubbing Alcohol if Color Remains

Try rubbing alcohol. Use a small amount of rubbing alcohol on a cloth. Rinse with water after each application of alcohol.

Bottle of rubbing alcohol

Step 8 – Give Hydrogen Peroxide a Shot

If the alcohol doesn’t work, you can try hydrogen peroxide. Be very careful and spot test a discrete area for colorfastness. Hydrogen peroxide can occasionally bleach certain carpets.

If you’ve got a wool carpet, for example, don’t even think about putting peroxide or anything “oxi” on it. Apply the hydrogen peroxide and let it sit for 10 minutes or so. Blot with a clean cloth. Rinse with warm water, repeat.

Bottle of hydrogen peroxide

Step 9 – Give that Former Slime Spot Some Air

Set up a fan next to the area you cleaned to help it dry. Leave it there for 12-24 hours. There’s no point in leaving your carpet and carpet pad soaked for days. How long does it take for carpets to dry depends on many factors, but a fan certainly helps get things drying faster.

Besides, you don’t want to invite mildew or mold, right? Then you’d no longer be asking how to remove slime from carpet and instead you’d be asking how to remove mold from your carpet! You’d also risk dealing with musty, smelly carpet odors.

speed drying carpet cleaning fan
MSS Cleaning employee carpet cleaning stairs with a stair tool

None of This Worked / It Sort of Worked But I Still Need Help!

If this process didn’t work, it’s probably time to call in a professional carpet cleaning company. Likely this won’t be necessary, but who knows… Maybe your kid made slime with construction adhesive or something instead of Elmers Glue (somewhat kidding here, but we’ve seen some crazy things so I won’t count this out!).

Professional Carpet Cleaners have more tools and solutions at their disposal than you could ever imagine. We’ve been able to remove spots and stains from carpet that people never thought would come out.

Furthermore, for those things that can’t come out, we can always cut out damaged areas and perform a carpet repair using carpet from another area or a spare piece of carpet. Carpet repairs are nearly invisible and will no doubt look far better than a bunch of glittery, colored glue spots all over your carpet.

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Or Call: 1-720-233-0761

About MSS Cleaning

MSS Cleaning is a team of carpet experts based out of Denver Colorado. We offer carpet cleaning, carpet repair and carpet stretching, tile and grout and upholstery cleaning.

We service approximately a 25 mile area around Denver, providing carpet cleaning to Littleton, Parker, Castle Pines and across the entire Denver area. If you have questions, or if we can help in any way, please don’t hesitate to reach out or to book a carpet cleaning or repair service.

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Removing Dog Urine From Carpet

Dog sitting on carpet

Help! I Can’t Get Dog Urine Smell Out of My Carpet

Here’s why you, and the carpet cleaner you already hired, can’t get the dog urine smell in your carpet to go away

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DIY Dog Urine Carpet Cleaning vs. Professional Carpet Cleaning 

When it comes to removing dog urine from carpet, the deciding factor on whether you can tackle the problem yourself or if you should call in a professional carpet cleaner comes down to the severity of the dog urine issue. 

For isolated incidents, especially with small dogs, removing the stain and smell can likely be done with the right know-how. For larger problems like numerous pet urine accidents or badly saturated areas, fully removing the smell and stain is likely not possible without professional help.

Internet Pet Urine Remedies

The internet is full of ideas on how to remove dog urine from carpet. Vinegar solution, ammonia, various pet enzymes, consumer “steam cleaners”. Often times, these are promises of DIY solutions that just don’t work as well as you’d like.

Perhaps you’ve tried some of these techniques. If you have, and they haven’t worked, you’re looking for a better solution. This may involve bringing in a professional carpet cleaner. But, before we get there, let’s explore what you can do yourself vs. what a professional can do.

Different Types of Consumer Dog Urine Treatments

Dog urine odor treatments usually fall into two categories: Enzymatic pet treatments and deodorizers. Enzymatic treatments work reasonably well.

Enzymes can actually consume the pet urine and help to remedy the issue, while deodorizers simply hide the smell. In either case, often times once it gets warm and sunny and the house heats up, the smell of dog urine increases.

MSS Cleaning dog, Steve, who was responsible for many dog urine stains

My Dog Urine Story – Why MSS Cleaning Exists

Years ago my wife and I went away on a trip and left our dogs in the care of a friend. We came home to find the carpet covered in dog urine spots. At 100 lbs, our dog is not small. We tried everything we could to clean the dog urine from the carpet.

We tried: home remedies and Pinterest solutions, renting a rug doctor, dousing the spots beyond liberally with Nature’s Miracle and even then renting the rug doctor again and trying a different detergent. It didn’t work. It got a bit better, but it was still driving us crazy.

We Hired a Carpet Cleaner to Help

Failing to remove the dog urine ourselves, we hired a company to clean the carpets. They really didn’t know what they were doing, in retrospect. That carpet cleaning didn’t work either.

So, we hired them to come back and replace portions of the carpet pad. That helped, but it didn’t fully solve the problem. 

Feeling out of options, we lived with the dog urine odor until… I bought a carpet cleaning company. Yes, this experience actually helped lead me to buy a carpet cleaning business. 

Recommendations on DIY Dog Urine Removal

Smaller Isolated Dog Urine Spots

  1. If the dog urine spot is still wet, use a portable extractor and warm water to rinse and extract as much of the urine as possible. If the spot is dry, wet it and extract as much urine as possible with the portable extractor. Our go-to is the Bissell Spot Clean Pro.
  2. Apply a mixture of 50% white vinegar and 50% warm water. If you have a portable extractor, you can put this right in the tank and apply with the sprayer. Thoroughly wet the area then extract as much as you can.
  3. Use a towel or a bunch of paper towels and press firmly into the area to try and draw out as much remaining liquid as possible.
  4. Liberally sprinkle baking soda on to the pet urine stain
  5. Let dry, then vacuum.
  6. If odor is still present, we’ve found Nature’s Miracle to be the best consumer enzymatic product. Apply and let dry per the instructions on the container.

Large Area or Multiple Dog Urine Spots

Realistically now it’s time to call a professional carpet cleaning company that specializes in pet odor and stain removal. Like my story above, you’re really going to be better off calling a professional here. If you try and DIY major dog urine issues, you’ll likely spend a bunch of time and money on products only to be back where you started and then have to hire a carpet cleaning company.

Nothing beats a powerful truck mounted machine, like the ones we use. Our equipment generates far more suction, pressure and heat than anything not purpose-built, and it’s necessary to remove major dog urine issues properly.

How Do Professionals Remove Significant Dog Urine Odor From Carpet?

When dealing with major pet urine issues, cleaning the carpet isn’t the big problem. Pet urine can be cleaned from most standard carpet relatively easily. The issue is actually the carpet pad and the subfloor beneath it.

Carpet pad is basically a giant sponge that traps and holds on to dog urine until it dries, leaving a nasty, stinky mess.

Identifying Dog Urine Spots in Carpet

The first thing you need to do is to identify the dog urine spots either with the naked eye, by using a black light, or by pulling the carpet back and looking at the underside.

When feasible, we prefer to pull back the carpet. It really allows you to look at the carpet pad and very obviously shows the dog urine stains on the backing of the carpet.

Dog urine stains showing through on the back of a piece of pulled back carpet

3 Options To Properly Cleaning Dog Urine From Carpet

Depending on the severity of the dog urine issue, a quality carpet cleaning professional will usually perform one of the three following options.

 

Applying topical dog urine treatment to carpet with a power sprayer

1.) Basic Pet Urine Treatment

If the spots are not too severe, a professional grade topical treatment can be applied. This will break down the dog urine and allow for extraction.

The carpet and the pad can both be treated topically. Topical pet treatment does an OK (but still far better than you could do yourself) job of cleaning the carpet, but there are certainly more advanced options.

If a topical treatment isn’t going to cut it, the carpet is going to need either a flood treatment or it’s going to need a carpet pad replacement.

Advanced dog urine removal treatment using a carpet flood extractor

2.) Advanced Pet Urine Treatment – Carpet Flooding

This more serious extraction technique is referred to as “flooding”. The idea is to apply a literal bucket full of a specialized pet urine neutralizing solution to the affected urine area. 

This solution saturates the pet urine stain, breaking down the urea and urine salts in the carpet and the carpet pad. Once it’s allowed to work for 30 minutes or so, it can then be extracted using the body weight of the user standing on the tool.

This technique removes as much urine as possible from the carpet pad which is particularly important because carpet pad is basically a big foam sponge and it holds liquid (hint: dog urine).

The vast majority of time, flooding works great for smaller areas that have been urine saturated. 

Replacing carpet pad in an area affected by dog urine

3.) Carpet Pad Replacement

We recommend carpet pad replacement in the affected areas when dog and cat urine damage is so widespread that it would end up costing our pet owners more to flood many spots than to just replace the carpet pad in the room.

A good carpet cleaning company should have a pretty good feel for when this is going to be necessary. We’ve done more than enough of these jobs to know before we even begin the work what we should recommend to our customers.

How to Replace the Damaged Carpet Pad

First all the furniture must be removed, then the carpet must be taken off the pad and set aside. The old carpet pad is thrown out. If the subfloor is damaged by urine, we strongly recommend sealing the subfloor with Kilz or an odor blocking oil-based paint.

New pad is then installed as well as new tack strip in any areas where the tack strip has been compromised by the dog urine.

Finally, the carpet needs to be cleaned, both on the front of the carpet fibers as well as the backing of the carpet. Once all of this has been completed, we stretch the carpet back in to reinstall.

Is This Approach to Removing Dog Urine from Carpet Foolproof?

The only method for removing dog urine from carpet that’s truly foolproof is going to be a carpet pad replacement and floor sealing. We do many dog urine carpet cleaning jobs and have very rarely ever been called back for an odor that returns.

We Hope This Helped!

We know that removing pet urine odors and stains from carpet is not an easy task. Hopefully this information has been helpful for you. If you live in the Denver area and would like to hire us to help you with your dog urine carpet cleaning issues, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We look forward to working with you!

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Or Call: 1-720-233-0761

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Deep Carpet Cleaning in Denver

A lot of companies say they can provide deep carpet cleaning services. The truth is, at least by our quality standards, they can’t. Restorative, deep carpet cleaning requires more than showing up with a van (or worse, something better resembling a station wagon) and spraying some water on the ground and sucking.

This, or using only a brush machine or bonnet machine does not provide restoration carpet cleaning. They may make your carpets look better, but they won’t make them look great. We aim to make them look great, regardless of the condition they are in when we start.

restoratation carpet cleaning is needed for heavily soiled areas like this one. Jobs like these call for a deep carpet cleaning that isn't just simply a basic hot water extraction

Restoration Carpet Cleaning Process

True restorative carpet cleaning requires a more complete process as well as a few really important steps that many companies skip. In our view, the first step for deep carpet cleaning is a thorough vacuuming with a high powered, commercial vacuum, equipped with a beater bar.

Some estimates put the quantity of dry soil in the carpet as high as 74-79%. We want to remove that instead of adding water and turning it to mud. After we vacuum, we move on to the hot water extraction process.

The Hot Water Extraction Deep Soil Removal Process

Here are the four major components of a restoration carpet cleaning, hot water extraction process that most companies only partially complete. These are specifically mentioned by the IICRC. As an IICRC Certified firm, we involve all of these important pieces to do the job right. Chemical, Agitation, Temperature and Time.4 components needed to properly deep clean carpets

A Practical Example of How These Components Work Together

If you have a greasy pot, you fill it full of hot water (temperature), you add dish soap (chemical), you let it soak (time). Usually this does a decent job of loosening and removing things. However, if this was enough, no one would own a sponge or a scrubber pad, right?

That final step of agitation is vital to getting things as clean as they need to be. If any of the 4 components are skipped, the cleaning is not going to be as effective. Let’s look at each deep cleaning component individually.

Temperature

The proper temperature is important for proper deep carpet cleaning. When you clean your dishes, you use hot water. When you clean your laundry, you prefer to use hot water.

Chemical reactions increase dramatically with greater heat. This means that the restoration carpet cleaning solutions we apply to your carpet will work better when they applied hot and removed hot. They don’t call it hot water extraction for nothing!

At the same time, certain carpets suffer under too much heat, so careful regulation is important. To have adequate hot water and a consistent temperature, a powerful truck mounted carpet cleaning system is important. This article doesn’t touch on what we think of dry cleaning, but if you’re interested, read more about the general ineffectiveness of dry carpet cleaning here.

Chemical

We have a wide variety of different detergents and solutions that we carry on our truck. We custom formulate our solutions at each job depending on what we see. If you have white carpets, we may apply a certain booster.

If you have pet stains or odor, certain different solutions and techniques can be applied. Heavy traffic lanes, or carpet that’s covered in grease, different solutions still.

Then we get to the topic of spotting and the myriad solutions we can apply to treat everything from rust to tar to ink to kool aid and paint. For restoration carpet cleaning, you need a company (and technician!) with a deep understanding of the proper chemistry of which solutions to apply to which carpet types and in which situations.

In general, a mid to high pH solution is applied to the carpets, agitated in, allowed time to dwell, and then extracted with a mildly acidic solution to neutralize the fibers and return them to their natural, slightly acidic, state. Here’s a dirty little industry secret: many companies do not even apply a pre-spray or they rinse the carpet during the extraction phase using only water in order to save money.

Agitation

Agitation is also really important for deep carpet cleaning. For a lightly soiled carpet, this step may not be entirely necessary, but with deep carpet cleaning, it absolutely is. After the pre-spray has been applied, it needs to be deeply scrubbed into the carpet.

Back to the dish washing example: if you take a greasy pot and put dish soap in it and rinse it out, it’ll get you most of the way there, but there are still bits of food and grime that didn’t come out. Its for this same reason that carpet restoration cleaning requires agitation to do the best job.

How is This Carpet Agitation Achieved?

There are a number of different pieces of equipment that provide agitation. Recently, you have probably started to see companies advertise “restorative carpet cleaning with a rotary machine” or something like that.

These machines have spinning water jets (unlike the fixed jets on most wands) and some provide a mechanical scrubbing action to the carpet as well as they turn. The purpose of these machines is to provide, you guessed it, agitation.

What do We Prefer for Agitating Carpet? The Counter Rotating Brush Machine!

We own a machine called the RX-20 that most consider the grand daddy of the rotary machines, and still one of the best available. You know what? It sits in the shop unused.

The reason? We’ve thoroughly tested it against our counter rotating brush machine and the counter rotating brush is hands down the better deep carpet cleaning tool!

The gist of this tool is that it contains two 20” brushes that rotate towards each other five times a second. This provides a deep carpet scrubbing action as well as it has the added benefit of lifting up hair, pet hair, and deeply embedded soil.

Some companies use this machine alone for their cleaning (the aforementioned vehicles that look like a station wagon… this is probably what’s in it). But alone, it’s not enough to do a thorough, deep carpet cleaning.

Counter Rotating Brush Machine is Vital to the Deep Carpet Cleaning Process

Time

Also often overlooked in a carpet cleaning process is time. Assuming all of the other steps have been followed, dwell time is really important for deep carpet cleaning. I hate to keep beating the dish washing example to death, but after you apply soap and hot water to a heavily soiled pan, what do you do? You let it soak!

Similarly, carpet cleaning solutions need a bit of time to work. Certainly not overnight like your greasy pan, but 10-15 minutes is usually a good idea. Too long of a soak and the solutions can actually lose their effectiveness. When you are talking about restorative carpet cleaning, you really want to maximize every cleaning power you’ve got.

Immediately rinsing after applying solution or waiting 30 minutes or an hour after rinsing for the pre-spray to dry doesn’t do the carpet cleaning technician (or your carpets) any favors.

Our Deep Carpet Cleaning Process

So, after this lengthy discussion, what is our process for restoration carpet cleaning?

  • Pre-vacuum with a commercial vacuum equipped with a properly adjusted beater bar
  • Pre-spray all areas with a high pH solution
  • Apply spot/stain pre-treatments to anything that looks like it needs it
  • Agitate pre-sprayed areas with a counter rotating brush machine
  • Allow adequate dwell time for solutions to work
  • Perform hot water extraction with hot water of the appropriate temperature for the carpet type
  • Re-address and spots or stains that did not come out during the hot water extraction phase
  • Place plastic or Styrofoam tabs underneath legs of furniture (steel, urethane coated wood, etc.) that pose a risk for bleeding into the carpet
  • Speed dry with fans
  • Apply carpet protectant (Scotchgard, Maxim, etc.) or additional deodorizer as desired by customer
  • Groom carpet to remove any impressions and align carpet fibers

 

Final Thoughts

As far as we’re concerned, the details above provide the right way to perform a deep carpet cleaning restoration service. It takes a bit more time than a lot of other companies are willing to spend, but seeing the smiling faces of our customers when we’re done is more than worth it. At MSS Cleaning, we deep clean carpets right!

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Why Carpet Protectors Are a Great Idea

Why Carpet Protectors are Important

We recommend each customer apply Scotchgard ™ or a similar carpet protector product after a professional carpet cleaning in Denver. It’s a smart idea to keep your carpets looking their best. There are a number of different carpet protector products available to protect your carpets and upholstery. The most well-known of these is Scotchgard ™.

A carpet protector or upholstery protector like Scotchgard can help avoid stains on carpet or upholstery like the wine spill in this image

Why use a Carpet Protector?

Most carpets these days come from the factory with some kind of protective coating. You probably have noticed that new carpets are more resistant to spills, stains and soiling than those with a few years on them.

Over time, factory applied carpet protection fades away. When this happens, this protective coating needs to be restored. In addition to the benefits of added soil and stain resistance, you will also experience faster and easier dry soil removal with your vacuum. The result is that your carpets will stay looking better, longer.

How Carpet Protector Works

Different carpet protector manufacturers claim different methods of action. Scotchgard ™ claims to “force liquids to the surface where they bead up for easy cleanup”. Effectively, it surrounds carpets and upholstery fibers with an invisible barrier to protect against oil and water based stains. This allows for more time to clean up the spill before it penetrates the fiber and causes a stain.

Meanwhile, products like Maxim Advanced claim to “coat the fibers with a stain barrier to protect them from difficult dye stains ‘from the inside out’.” Both products are considered environmentally friendly.

Which Carpet Protector Do We Recommend?

We apply either Scotchgard ™ and Maxim Advanced ™ products depending on a customer’s preference or brand loyalty. In general, we prefer the Maxim Advanced product, but we’re happy to apply Scotchgard ™ instead if you like.

We have had positive experiences with the Maxim Advanced solution. It also both Shaw Approved and also meets Wool Balance standards. Either product can be applied to nylon carpets or to wool carpets.

 

Applying carpet protectant to white carpet with a power sprayer
MSS Cleaning employee grooming the carpet to evenly apply carpet protector

How Do We Professionally Apply Carpet Protector?

The best time to apply carpet protector is after the carpet or upholstery has been professionally cleaned. We use a power sprayer to apply the solution to the surface carefully and evenly. Of course, we are careful to ensure we cover all areas. For carpet, we then use a carpet grooming rake to work the solution into the fibers to ensure even and deep coverage.

 

Can Carpet Protector Products Provide Upholstery Protection too?

They absolutely can! Upholstery protectors work great and will mitigate damage caused by spots or spills. They also allow for easier cleaning and maintenance. This means your upholstery will stay looking its best and not dirty or worn. After a professional upholstery cleaning, we apply different products, still from Scotchgard™ or Maxim™ than we use for carpet.

The reason for this is that upholstery need to stretch and flex, while carpet does not. Specific solutions, therefore, need to be used to make sure they are flexible and won’t come off prematurely.

 

Before and after sofa cleaning and upholstery protection

Final Thoughts on Carpet Protectors

Applying carpet or upholstery protectors after cleaning carpet in Denver or nearby areas is a great idea. It will keep your carpets and upholstery looking better, longer. It will also help avoid the panic immediately after a spill occurs. You’ll both have more time to clean it up and you’ll know that anything remaining from the spill can be more easily cleaned the next time we clean your carpets or upholstery. 

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10 Helpful Carpet Cleaning Tips When Moving In or Out

Moving presents a rare opportunity to fully clean a living space without furniture being in the way. Whether you need a move out carpet cleaning as you leave Denver or a move in carpet cleaning as you arrive at a new apartment in an affordable city like Milwaukee, Wisconsin, scheduling a carpet cleaning is the best move.

1.) Hire a Certified Carpet Cleaner: 

Hire an IICRC Certified firm that uses modern, truck mounted equipment for your move out carpet cleaning. This will help ensure you hire a reputable company that knows what they are doing. These firms should also have the equipment to do the job well. iicrc certified carpet cleaning company seal

2.) Ask for Hot Water Extraction:

While there are many ways to clean carpet, hot water extraction (AKA Steam Cleaning) is regarded as the most thorough method and provides a deep, restorative carpet cleaning. Whether you are moving out, or you want move in carpet cleaning prior to taking occupancy, you want hot water extraction for a thorough, deep clean.

carpet cleaning van and equipment

3.) Schedule your Carpet Cleaning Properly to Coincide with the Movers:

If you are moving out, schedule your move out carpet cleaning once the movers have finished their work. If you are moving in, schedule your move in carpet cleaning for the day before the move.

This will ensure the carpets are fully dry by the time to movers arrive to bring in your furniture. Cleaning carpets in empty rooms is easier and more thorough than trying to clean around furniture. Whether you need Denver carpet cleaning or cleaning elsewhere, get it scheduled properly.

4.) Dealing With Carpet Pet Stains and Odor When Moving:

If you have carpet pet stains or odors that you can’t pinpoint, the last thing you want to do is put furniture on top of them. Pets often mark areas along walls. You don’t want to move a couch or a dresser on top of that odor and then always wonder where the smell is coming from. Odors become far more intense in warm months, so you won’t realize there are pet odors until it gets hot outside.

A professional carpet cleaner will have many tools at his/her disposal to diagnose pet issues (such as a black light and well-trained eye) as well as to treat them. Treatment can be as basic as a topical enzyme treatment or as severe as needing to treat the subfloor and replace the carpet pad.

All of this is easier (and less costly) without furniture being in the way. Carpet cleaning when moving is a great time to tackle pet stains and odor.Pet stained carpet is best cleaned during move in carpet cleaning or move out carpet cleaning when there isn't any furniture on it

5.) The Carpet Has a Wrinkle That Needs to be Stretched or a Repair to be Done:

Over time, carpets can develop wrinkles or bubbles in them as the carpet ages, or due to poor installation. This can usually be fixed by stretching the carpet. You can’t do a good job of stretching carpet when it has furniture weighing it down.

The room needs to be empty to do the job right. When are you otherwise going to have the opportunity to have a completely empty room but when you are moving in or moving out and rooms are empty?

repair damaged carpet during move in carpet cleaning

6.) The Furniture Left Impressions On the Carpet: 

We’ve all seen it; once all of the furniture is moved out of a space, there are little depressions everywhere. Table legs, chairs, dressers, beds etc. leave impressions on the carpet.

Hot water extraction often removes or lessens these depressions. Another great trick that often helps is to leave an ice cube in each depression. As the ice melts, it can help pop the depressions back up.

7.) You’re Moving Out and the Carpet Traffic Lanes are Trashed:

Once all that furniture is out of the way, dark, dirty traffic lanes can become really obvious. Look for a company that has a counter rotating brush machine or a rotary extractor. While a standard carpet wand in the right hands can do a great job, these heavy duty machines really help go the extra mile to bring a carpet back to life when restorative work is needed.

move out carpet cleaning traffic lanes

8.) Apply Carpet Protection After Move In Carpet Cleaning:

While the home is empty without any furniture, it’s the best time to apply carpet protection. Applying Scotchgard, Teflon, Maxim or other quality protectants will keep your carpets clean and looking great.

Following a move in carpet cleaning is a great time to apply protectant, while the carpet is still damp and there is nothing on the carpet. When you inevitably spill that soda or glass of red wine, clean up will be easier and the carpet will be far less likely to have any permanent stain.

9.) Choose the Right Vacuum and Use it Regularly:

For ongoing Maintenance, get a quality vacuum cleaner with an electronically driven brush (also referred to as a beater bar). This is especially vital for homeowners with pets. Adjust the vacuum so that it doesn’t grab or pull on the carpet, but still makes contact with the carpet fibers.

10.) Schedule Periodic Carpet Cleaning:

For most households, getting an annual carpet cleaning is adequate to keep your carpets looking great and to extend the life of the carpet. Most carpet manufacturers require a carpet cleaning every 12-18 months in order to uphold a warranty as well.

After we’ve done your initial move in carpet cleaning, it’s time to set up a periodic scheduled carpet cleaning for the future.

Follow these move in carpet cleaning and move out carpet cleaning tips to get your carpets looking great and help keep them that way!

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Dry Carpet Cleaning vs. Hot Water Extraction Carpet Cleaning Denver

Dry carpet cleaning versus hot water extraction carpet cleaning in denver

Dry Carpet Cleaning vs. Steam Cleaning in Denver

Recently we’ve heard a lot of marketing hype about dry carpet cleaning vs. hot water extraction and how dry carpet cleaning has faster dry times. It’s true, “dry” carpet cleaning actually leads to faster dry times.

Does it lead to a superior carpet cleaning? Unfortunately not. Have a look at the photo above.

This was a recent job we did where there were grease spots and heavy soiling on the carpet. Using our trusty Brush Pro machine (the finest counter rotating brush machine available), we used encapsulation to dry clean the carpets. This is the same process used by a lot of the “dry cleaning” companies, only our brush machine is nicer than theirs is.

After we dry cleaned the carpets, we did a follow up cleaning with hot water extraction (steam cleaning) to see what kind of improvement we could create. I think the images speak for themselves.

Dry Carpet Cleaning Dry Times

So, the marketing hype around dry carpet cleaning will tell you that your carpets dry within 30 minutes. The question we have to ask is “who cares!?”.

Don’t you care more about getting your carpets to be actually clean? To do a better job removing spots and stains? Are we crazy for thinking that it’s more important to actually clean your carpets than it is to be able to lie on them a half hour after cleaning?

Are we alone in that we don’t have this vision that as soon as the carpets get cleaned, we should immediately lie down and roll around on them? Nobody does this!  We are a carpet cleaning company and chances are we’re probably more passionate about clean carpets than you are.

Even so, we’d be willing to bet that you’ve spent less than .01% of your life lying on carpets. Though the marketing images you see probably dictate otherwise, you probably don’t spend much time lying on your carpet.

We also are willing to bet you’re probably alright with waiting 2-4 hours to satiate that unquenchable urge to do some carpet lying. Right?

Walking on Carpets After Carpet Steam Cleaning

But wait, what about walking on the carpets after they are cleaned? Isn’t that going to be a problem? No! Walk around in clean sneakers, a pair of house slippers, bare feet, or whatever seems to work for you.

What about all those toxic chemicals carpet cleaners use!? We don’t know what the “other guys” are using, but our solutions are kid and pet friendly, non-toxic, and certainly fine for your feet.

Lions and Tigers and MOLD! Oh My!

Don’t let them scare you. Hot water extraction, done properly, isn’t going to result in mold, mildew, or anything of the sort. The only time this could be a risk if you hire someone who has no idea what they are doing. If you flood anything with water and you don’t suck it back up, you’re going to have problems.

However, if the machine is set properly and the operator knows what he/she is doing, applying hot water and solution and extracting it will provide both the best carpet cleaning available and it will be done safely.

At MSS Cleaning, we are an IICRC certified firm with IICRC certified technicians. We do over 1,000 jobs a year, and we’ve never once had a single mention of mold, mildew, or anything of the sort after we clean carpets in a home or business. More marketing scare tactics.

The Bottom Line on Carpet Cleaning Services

Dry carpet cleaning is an inferior service that was originally designed as a carpet maintenance solution for commercial areas. Over time, dry carpet cleaning has become a hot new marketing buzz word and scare tactic.

If you want your home or business carpet’s cleaned the best way possible, that way is going to be hot water extraction. At MSS Cleaning, we provide the best carpet cleaning in Denver, plain and simple.

We don’t need marketing gimmicks to sell our services, we instead prefer to let our services speak for themselves.

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