Yosser

Cleaning the carpet seems to be big business here in the U.S. what with all the commercials on t.v.

Do you pay a company or DIY?

Last year I hired "the rug doctor" machine from Tom Thumb, it wasn't bad, but took a awfully long time.

Anyone hire anything else?

AmerLisa

If you do it yourself, make very sure you know what you are doing. Same goes for hiring someone, don't just hire the cheapest person that comes panhandling around, get references.....

CaliforniaBride

We use a guy that hubby has used ofr a long time. He pops round about once a year but we can call him when we need. We have hardwood floors in most of the house but he does our dining/living room for $100. It's a cream carpet so it really does need it. And he does a great job.

Yosser

We have cream carpet as well, the kids have annihilated it.

I will eventually lay down some wood floors by the end of the year, just need to get the carpet cleaned as the old dear is coming over...must get the house tip top before mother gets here

ladylisa

We cleaned our cream carpet last week as my husband said that looking at it was putting him off his dinner!

We were going to hire a rug doctor however after adding up the cost of hire and cleaning fluids its worked out that for a few bucks more we could buy a carpet cleaner ourselves. We ended up buying a Hoover cleaner priced at $120 which included free cleaner fluid. We were a little dubious about how it would turn out but I must say its done a fab job, and it was very easy to use much like hoovering the carpet. The great thing is we can use it at our convenience which is the long run is much cheaper that hiring someone or hiring the Rug Doctor. I would certainly recommend it.

FlyergirlUK

Ditto! My mother will be arriving in time for my youngest's first birthday so Hubs has been nominated to take the lil man out for an afternoon and let me get on with the job.

I've used the Rug Doctor machine before so still have the cleaning fluids from last time and will hire it out again for this next mammoth task.

snorkmaiden

Our carpet is a pale grey colour and between the kids and the cats it gets filthy really quickly.

We tried that rug doctor thing initially but thought it was naff (not up to the kind of cleaning required in our play room thanks to my two youngest kids, nine and seven year old boys). Now we use Kiwi. You pay full wack for the first trip (I think when we did it they had some kind of offer on and we paid $79 for three rooms and the hall, stairs and landing) and then they will come out again as many times as you want over the next year to do freshen ups, but that only costs $15 for coming out and then $4 per room.

We've been happy with them so far. It gets more expensive if you have any really bad stains though, for stains that won't come out with the ordinary clean they charge about $20 per stain if I remember correctly.

LeedsGirl

That Rug Doctor should be called Break Your Bloody Back Doctor.

Jan Alaska

I use the carpet cleaner from work its an industrial bissell which works like a dream ... best of all its FREE just another perk of working in a hotel

Jan

Duncan Roberts

$8 for the shampoo stuff and $15 or so to hire the cleaner. The whole house for less that $25.
If you are going to hire anything from like Home Depot they charge for like 4 hours or 24 hours. If you don't mind working late, go 3 hours before the store closes and you can get the 4 hour rate if you return it by there 'new day' time, I think maybe 9:00am for Home Depot, the next day. Can save quite a bit if you do that.

Taffyles

Club soda for stains- just pour it on stain, wait a few and then blot up- works a treat. Vinegar and HOT water to clean carpets- excellent job and all for a few bucks, plus a little bit of elbow grease if needed.

Vinegar and hot water for tiled floors - keeps the grout clean too.

Pimpbot

We did hire someone up until last year when we bought a bissel(sp) cleaner. We have since upgraded to a $200 steam cleaning bissel that we bought from Costco that really does a great job on our light cream carpets.

anotherlimey

Lots of carpet cleaning tips being posted; so does anyone know how to get red wine stains off the wall and ceiling?

Celsius

How in the world did you get red wine on the ceiling?




Celsius

anotherlimey

That's a long, and slightly unpleasant, story.