The situation is all too familiar. You think your carpets are clean, you vacuum them regularly, you even rented a steam cleaner this year – yet to your frustration, you step into the room one day and get a whiff of a familiar odor. From pet urine to food stains, you’re upset to realize that despite your best efforts, the odors and stains are coming back to haunt you.
What is a frustrated homeowner to do? Let’s discuss the causes of recurring carpet stains and odors, and how can you get rid of them once and for all?
Sticky Residues Attract Dirt
Leftover soapy residues attract dirt to your carpet over and over again. So a stain that you think is making a repeat appearance may actually be a new stain accumulating there because it’s sticking to residue that was left behind after your DIY carpet cleaning session.
Unfortunately, store-bought carpet cleaning solutions and formulas contain lots of soap. If you failed to thoroughly rinse and dry the carpet, that residue stays behind and acts as a magnet for new stains. So in essence, even after performing a cleaning, your carpets are actually more vulnerable to stains than they were before.
Excess Moisture Causes Wicking
Stains and odors don’t just hang out on the surface of the carpet. They seep down into the backing and padding underneath, which explains their perpetual presence. Both moisture and residual stains tend to get trapped deep down in your carpets, often times due to the fact that many sub-par carpet cleaning methods use far too much moisture without extracting it properly.
When the stain starts drying, it travels up the fibers, or wicks, which causes stains to re-emerge on a continual basis.
Recurring Carpet Odors
Most carpet odors originate with your pets. Urine penetrates the carpet fibers, padding and backing; then, the moisture dries, but strong odor crystals stay behind. And those crystals carry bacteria with them, adding another layer of vulnerability.
It’s important to realize that most standard carpet cleaning methods remove just the surface stains but don’t get at the odors where they lurk: deep down in the fibers and padding. When you fail to eliminate odors right at the source, they’ll continue to permeate the air in your home.
Contact 1st Class Carpet Cleaning and Restoration
Let us clean your carpets right. We use high-temp, high-suction machines to get out even the deepest set stains and odors, plus we make sure everything is thoroughly dried so as to avoid the buildup of moisture. To schedule a cleaning, call us at (248) 491-3088.
