Carpet Stains – What do I do?

Carpet stains in our homes can be a constant irritation.  If your tolerance level has reached its limits for your carpet stains, there is an important question you need to ask yourself?

How do I want to remove these stains?

Call a professional
Do it myself
Replace the carpet

In this blog, we are going to talk about the three main options for removing carpet stains and how you can best take advantage of these three options.

Call a professional

By calling a professional to remove your carpet stains, you will get the best results possible excluding the option of replacing your carpet entirely.  With this route, the question now becomes, who do I trust?

There are many carpet cleaning companies that claim they are experts and that they can remove your carpet stains.  Here is the truth; there is no license or training that someone needs to take to call themselves a carpet cleaner.  So again, the questions you need to ask yourself is “who do I trust?” Well here is some great news; there are ways to find who experts are and who aren’t.  Here’s how:

The Carpet and Rug Institute.

The Carpet and Rug Institute measures efficiency of carpet cleaning companies and gives them a bronze, silver, gold or platinum seal of approval depending on how they perform on different measurements including the removal of dirt and carpet stains.

What you want to look for are those who have the Carpet and Rug Institute Platinum Seal of Approval.  These are companies who remove more than 90% of soil from carpet with their cleaning system.  The companies you are looking for should also have good drying time and not leave sticky or harsh residue in your carpet when removing carpet stains.

Do it yourself

Removing the carpet stains yourself would be the most cost effective way to take care of this problem.  The questions you need to ask yourself here are how do I properly remove carpet stains? What products can I trust? And how serious is the stain?

It is important do know how to properly remove stains before attempting to do so.  Improper techniques can result in frayed and damaged carpet.

Learn more about how to remove stains from carpet

The product that you use is just as important as how you use it.  Try to avoid products with soaps and detergents and look for products that leave no residue in carpet.  Left behind residue such as soaps and detergents actually can cause your carpet to attract more dirt and stains in the future.

Carpet stains that come from dirt or sugar based items have a better chance of being removed with a do it yourself process.  More serious stains that have a dye base are harder to remove and if treated improperly can actually set the stain, making it impossible for even the best carpet cleaner to remove.

Replace the Carpet

This approach will give you the best results but unfortunately leave you with the smallest purse or wallet.  The national average price for new carpet is $3.70 a square foot. The average living room is around 250 square feet.  The average price to just replace carpet in a living room is around $925.00.

Replacing carpet to get rid of stains as you may guess is not the first choice for most people.  Interesting enough, if a carpet is well maintained and cleaned often, the next time you will need to worry about replacing your carpet will be because it’s out of date and not because it is warn and stained.

When choosing a company to replace your carpet make sure they are a company that is creditable and has references.  Also when the carpet is being installed, make sure the technician seals and cocks the edges.  If you currently have black lines that appear around the edges where the carpet meets the baseboard, it is most likely caused because this step was not taken in the installation process.

Carpet Stains

Carpet stains can be annoying and irritating.  The good news is that you don’t have to live with them.  Depending on how serious the stains are, any one of the previous methods can help you make you carpet stain free.