Thanks are due to Lisa for requesting this week’s topic: Toxic Free Carpet Cleaning (for homes with dogs and other dirty creatures great and small). I don’t have carpets myself (but I do have a dog) so I’m basing today’s tip on some stuff I found on the interwebs, plus a little dog-sense. Y’all will have to test it out and let me know how it works!
This is not my dog, but it looks like kinda like her.
But, before we get to the recipe, you should know that not only are commercial carpet cleaning products expensive, they can also have some nasty stuff in them that you’d do better not to breathe (and so would your dog). Depends on the product, but a little quick search is turning up winners like butane, teflon, petroleum, and perchloroethylene (the stuff they use in dry cleaning). Yikes. When in doubt, check the label on a product, and if you’re dealing with professional carpet cleaning services, ask to see an MSDS for their cleaning solution – that stands for Material Safety Data Sheet, and it has all kinds of information about the chemicals in a product.
So, without further ado, I bring you:
Toxic Free NC‘s recipes for Cheap & Toxic-Free Carpet Cleaning
(with gratitude to National Geographic’s Green Guide)
Tackling recent spills on carpets:
Mud: Rub salt on the mud. Let it rest for an hour, then vacuum.
Coffee: Rub club soda into the spot. Clean up with a sponge.
Red wine: Cover stain with salt while wet. Let dry completely, then vacuum.
Chocolate: Mix Borax and water to make a paste. Rub into stain.
Grease: Cover with cornstarch or cornmeal, let sit awhile, rub in and vacuum.
Cleaning older, tougher carpet stains:
For a heavy-duty carpet cleanser take 1/4 cup each of salt, borax and vinegar and mix to form a paste, then rub onto carpet. Let it dry, then vacuum the spot thoroughly. (Note, the first time you do this, I’d try a little bit on the corner of the carpet under a piece of furniture or something before you do it in the middle of the carpet, just to make sure it doesn’t mess with your carpet dye.)
Plus, I also found this recipe for removing cat pee stains, which I bet would work for not-quite-housebroken dogs, too. Thank you, Cats of Australia!
Good luck, and please do let me know how these recipes work!
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. Every stain requires you to treat it so differently - it almost makes you nervous about doing anything to them! I find that pour-and-vacuum methods like this work well when they are paired with professional steam cleaning … salt and borax is good, but definitely doesn’t make the carpet look like new.
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