Best way to clean carpet?

[la79al]

Back when I was young and naive, DH let me pick out carpet for a few rooms of the house. I picked a beige colored Berber carpet for a downstairs bedroom. Well that room has since turned into a playroom and the little monsters have destroyed the carpet. Structurally it is fine but I think everything short of bodily fluids is now coating the carpet. We have one of those carpet cleaners that you put hot water is and sort of steam the carpet with but that is not doing much. Any tips on how to get the carpet cleaner?

 

[firefly_ris]

I love my carpet cleaner and it has worked some miracles on my area rugs and the wall to wall in the kid bedrooms (3 kids 8 and under, resident dogs, foster dogs/puppies, etc), but I notice it doesn't work really well on low pile carpet like Berber. I would call a local carpet cleaning service, they are usually fairly reasonable and have more industrial strength equipment.

 

[usnuzuloose]

The problem is you need really need hot water and good suction.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

Berber is hard to clean. I had it in one room in the old house and the steam cleaner didn't really work on it. It did help a little when I tried using vinegar in the steam cleaner, can you try that? I didn't use it full strength, I got a recommendation for diluting the vinegar online but I don't remember the ratios anymore, it's been years. I remember that the vinegar restored some of the beige-ish color to the carpet, but I ended up ripping it up anyway because it was in the sunroom and was constantly getting dirty there.

 

[Southernmiss]

Carpet cleaning is a process. I use a Hoover or Bissell machine. In addition to the shampoo, I add vinegar, oxyclean and boil my water on the stove. I also spot treat the whole floor with hot water oxyclean and vinegar in a spray bottle.

I then take my time with the machine and dump the dirty water often.

Pleased enough with the results on my beige carpet with 6 of us tracking everything in on it.

 

[Wishing on a star]

We bought a used Nautivac rental carpet machine. It is the kind with the wand/spayer, and I can put steaming hot water in it.
It works like Stanley Steamer.
Best investment, ever!!!

You might try to find out if there is a rental outlet near you, and rent one for the day.

I really don't think the boxy kind of machines do much, especially for low pile carpet.

 

[tvguy]

We always had our (brown) carpet professionally cleaned once a year. Used Chem-Dry for the first few years, but switched to steam cleaning for most of the years. House and carpet were 4 years old when we bought the house, so the carpet was 34 years old when we replaced it. Oh lord, it was like a beach under the pad. Amazing how much dirt carpet hides. We put in laminate, and now we SEE how much fuzz/hair/dirt was being caught in the carpet. We have to sweep every week and get piles of stuff.
So not sure there IS a way to really keep carpet clean, short of not using the room it is in. I say that because when I sold my parents house, the original, 53 year old wall to wall carpet was still there. It was high quality nylon pile, and there was no wear, just staining in the traffic areas. But the living room, which only got used for special occasions, everyone remarked how the carpet looked brand new.
I know in commercial buildings, they just plan on replacing carpet every few years because you can't keep it clean. My office has the carpet steam cleaned once a month, and they replace it every 4 years.

 

[DisneyHardin]

I dilute a little bit of Norwex UPP Laundry detergent in hot water in my carpet cleaner machine. It works wonders. I saw some before and after pictures of someones carpet on my Norwex reps Facebook page who did it, so I tried it and it really got the grime out of the carpet.

 

[Bostonbeans99]

I don't know how much square footage you have ......but we use Campanelli Carpet Cleaner.
We have a dog and family of 5 ...I love this stuff.
(we also have a commercial grade carpet cleaner)

 

[Frantasmic]

Carpet cleaning is a process. I use a Hoover or Bissell machine. In addition to the shampoo, I add vinegar, oxyclean and boil my water on the stove. I also spot treat the whole floor with hot water oxyclean and vinegar in a spray bottle.

I then take my time with the machine and dump the dirty water often...

This. I use Quick N. Bright liquid I bought at the State Fair a while back. Boiling the water and using it as hot as possible after that is the key to getting out tough dirt. The Bissell liquid shampoo seems to work better than other brands too. If your machine has a rinse function/portion of the tank, use that too. it takes longer, but you get a lot of detergent out of the carpet and it picks up residual dirt too.