Carpets Are Not For Everybody

“How often do I have to book a professional cleaner so my carpets always stay in perfect shape?” I feel a tingle down my spine whenever I hear this seemingly innocuous question. The people who ask it tell me two things without even realizing it – they do not plan to do any carpet maintenance on their own; they haven’t thought through their floor covering choice. And while I always come up with the standard answer, here is what I really want to tell them.

Professional Carpet Cleaning Will Not Solve All Your Problems

I tend to consider spot and stain removal or hot water extraction – my most booked services – as the nuclear option, the final resort when everything else has failed. But these procedures, effective as they are, cannot substitute the good old-fashioned vacuum cleaning. Let me put it this way – you do not go deer hunting with a tank, you take a rifle. But if you think that to be too time-consuming, why bother installing carpets on your floors in the first place? And this leads us to the heart of the matter. 

Having Carpets Is A Serious Commitment

I would say at least 75% of my regular customers do not see it that way. When I ask them why they chose carpets for their homes, I often get “They look really cool and classy” or “They make the whole place feel warmer and cozier”, and my all-time favourite: “My interior designer advised me to do so.” I guess the interior designer forgot to mention one of the following things:

• Carpets accumulate enormous amounts of dust. If you do not vacuum-clean them regularly, the dust will end up in the air inside your home, potentially causing severe respiratory and allergic problems.
• Carpets require at least double the time per room to maintain compared to tiles, vinyl or wooden floors. 
• If you spill wine or ketchup on your tiled floor in the kitchen, you can clean it within fifteen seconds with a microfiber towel and some universal home detergent. Spills and stains are significantly more tricky on a textile surface. 
• Carpets are not suitable for every room. While they are perfect for bedrooms and living rooms, putting a carpet on the kitchen floor is a potential disaster.

Whenever my customers want my advice, I tell them to consider their carpets an extra pet. You do not take a Golder Retriever home just because they are adorable, cuddly, and funny. You take them with the understanding that you will have to care for them, walk them out, pick their poo, take them to the vet when they are sick and so on. Of course, carpets do not require that level of care, but abandoning your duties or thoroughly delegating them to a cleaning professional is not a good choice in the long run. 

What Are The Alternatives? 

I’d say there are three options for you:

• The obvious one – stop being so lazy and vacuum your carpets at least once per week. Come on, it is not that much of a hassle!
• The lazy one – OK, we have confirmed that you are a sloth. The good news is that you live in 2023, and the home cleaning industry has come up with floor-cleaning robots. Even better – their price has been steadily going down for the past few years, so you don’t have to dip too deep in your pocket.
• The painful one – admit that you are not going to take either step one or two and refurbish your house, choosing another floor-covering option.