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Wednesday 16 February 2011

What's the best way to clean my carpets?

I'm not the most house-proud person in the world, I don't think you really can be when you have three dogs! But I'm really at my wits' end at the moment. It's so wet and muddy everywhere, and though I do try to clean/dry the dogs' paws when we come back from a walk, you can't do that every time they come in from the garden, and my carpets are really suffering. You should see my car boot, too, despite using vet bedding!

We moved into a new house towards the end of last year, and it is beautifully carpeted throughout; unfortunately not in the colours I would have chosen - they are a pale cream colour. The carpets were practically new when we bought the house, they are beautiful, just not very practical, and we simply cannot afford to replace them. But the dirt the dogs are bringing in is taking its toll, and, even worse, I'm hoping for a new addition to the pack in the spring.

Our ground floor is open-plan and I can't easily contain the dogs in one area. I have looked into professional cleaning but it's very expensive, and it's going to need doing regularly. What's the most cost effective way of cleaning carpets? Or should we just save up for new, mud-coloured ones...

Jennifer James, Fleet, Hants

3 comments:

  1. Keeping your cream coloured carpets looking cream is certainly a challenge, but we would recommend our Vax Rapide Ultra 2 carpet cleaner as the perfect candidate for this job. It’s really quick and easy to use – it shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes to clean the average sized living room - and it leaves your carpets touch dry and ready to walk on again in just an hour or two. That means you can keep on top of daily dirt and muddy paw prints with the minimum of disruption to your day. More difficult stains and marks are no problem either, you just zap them with the pre-treatment kit before you wash. And as it’s got a flexible hose and a wash tool, you can easily clean out your car boot too. Best of all, it's £100 off at our website at the moment, so grab a bargain while you can!

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  2. I pay a bloke to come in every 3 months or so, he only charges me £60, which I didn't think was expensive. I guess it depends on the size of your house.

    He's told me wool is the worst to get clean, do you know what your carpets are made of?

    You can get some stain guard down once they are clean which would help, but if you spot clean with water you wash it off.

    I have so many dogs around that get so muddy so often I did choose a mud coloured carpet, but you can still see the areas the dogs travel through most. I do have mats down at key points, I got them from Lakeland (Super-Absorbent Microfibre) for about £20 each, but they are great and you can put them in the washing machine. You need to get that stuff underneath which stops them travelling about though. I got mine from a camping shop. Fantastic stuff.

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  3. cheapest dirt trapper mats are on the splendidpets website - lots of colours shapes and sizes - really trap the dirt. I even have one in the car!

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