Anyone use Rug Doctor?

[2 princes 1 princess]

Our upstairs carpet is old and needs to be replaced however we are trying to get another year or so out of it.

We've used Stanley Steemer before and they were fine yet they charge $150.
Renting a Rug Doctor along with the cleaning solution, anti-foam solution and stain treatment will cost about $50. I know it's more work to do it myself, so I'm looking to see if anyone has had success with renting rather than hiring.

 

[MickeyHereWeCome!]

I'm cheap, so we have always rented a Rug Doctor and done it ourselves. It's really easy, but does get tiring to fill/empty the water chamber. I think it does a pretty good job...I'm always quite embarrassed by the amount of filth that comes out of our carpet. I can't speak for how it compares to having it professionally done, but it certainly does a great job for us! We try to clean carpets at the start of each new season.

 

[deerhart]

don't bother with the soap. Instead use a mixture of vinegar and water.

Vinegar will clean the carpets effectively and does not leave a residue for dirt to stick to like soap does.

If we do use soap, we then run a vinegar run over the top of it to remove the soap residue.

We have a steam cleaner vacuum we purchased a few years ago (two boys and a dog = NEED)

lots and lots of websites will give also recommend the vinegar versus soap for steam cleaning.

 

[3boymthr]

Done it many times well worth the money as for a couple extra bucks you can rent an upholstery cleaner and also clean the carpets in your car.

You may be able to use Bissel or Resolve soaps which are less expensive - and for which you can get coupons. Check the ingredients and compare.

As PP mentioned you can clean with just water and vinegar.

Unless you have wool carpeting, I also recommend making sure your water is really really hot. The hotter the water that you put into the machine the cleaner the carpet gets.

Also I recommend a second running of the machine over the carpets without adding any water to the machine to suck up any excess water from the first run so they dry faster.

 

[ferrytale]

The rug doctor's work good, but I offer a word of caution - make sure you check the machine carefully before bringing it home! The first time I rented one, I rented it from the grocery store. I cleaned the rugs, then put it in the tub to clean it out. I left to go out to the kitchen and came back a few minutes later and there was a HUGE cockroach in the tub. I freaked and made DH get rid of it, but for a few weeks after we would find a random cockroach crawling around and we NEVER had an issue before we had rented the machine. We wound up getting the house treated for them and didn't have a problem after that. I did rent one in the last year, but from a different store and made sure that I checked it over well before I took it home.
You can save a bunch of $$. I just called Stanley Steemer about getting my sectional cleaned and that is going to cost me about $140.

 

[dawson5]

Also go to the rug doctor site. I did this last fall (need to do this again too) but they had a $5 off coupon for signing up to the site. They send out emails with coupons also.

 

[WENDYDOTS]

I have used the Rug Doctor many times and I think it always does a good job, and I am also always embarrassed by how dirty the water is...!!
I don't buy the anti foam and don't seem to have a problem with it..

 

[amez]

http://rent.rugdoctor.com/allyou/?source=allyou
coupon for $5 off rug doctor rental, $3 off cleaner and a couple of more.
We have a carpet cleaner and use it regularly, but tried to rug dr to get up some stubborn spots-our carpet looks soooo much better (just did all the house this weekend) it's so much cleaner and like I said i use my home carpet cleaner quite often.