Gross but satisfying

[janedavitt]

We ended up buying the Bissell 2x pet stain cleaning carpet steamer ($80 cheaper at Canadian Tire than it was at Sears, so it paid to shop around).

I've done all the downstairs rooms and two bedrooms and the hallway upstairs. Now comes the hardest rooms; E and L's plus the stairs. The stuff on the floor! Yikes!

Many of the rooms haven't been cleaned since we moved in, or fifteen years for the old carpet, about seven for the newer stuff we put down on the ground floor. I can safely say that at $249 dollars plus $20 for the cleaner, the machine could blow up on Monday and it's still paid for itself three times over. The filth it's gotten up is horrifying and yet satisfying because look, there that black water goes down the sink and I'm not walking on dirt anymore.

At first we thought the gobs of gray fluff it churned up were cat hair but I think it's just carpet fibres and gunk. I stop and pick it up so it doesn't clog the machine and each room yields enough to fill a cereal bowl.

So, so gross. And not in a good, Paul Gross way.

Obviously this is something I'm going to need to repeat a few times to get it all truly clean, but it's a start. I'm marveling at how hidden that dirt was. The carpets looked okay and they get vacuumed often. Sheesh.

Comments

[darklock]

We love our steamer. Those clumps of fur and gunk are disgusting... they remind me of thrown up fur balls... or the clumps you pull out of drains. We stopped adding cleaner after we discovered that we couldn't suck up all the cleaner residue and the residue continued to attract dirt. We now use warm water... it works great. I run it over a bit more if we have a tenacious spot. We have a four year old and a two year old who get to run around with drinks and food, so there are many tenacious spots. We use the steamer on our furniture, too. Love it!

[janedavitt]

Ooh, I'll have to try it with just water; thanks for the tip!

[bluewolf458]

My pal got one early March, did my carpets as well as her own - my upstairs carpets were badly stained Tara's last night, when she had almost non-stop diarrhoea. It was amazing how little gunk there was.

She's done her own carpets again since then - the water ended up black, from the muck taken in on little - well, maybe not so little - canine feet, and I think she's planning on about once a month...

[janedavitt]

I can see how you'd need to schedule it on a regular basis, especially for high-traffic areas.

[deaver]

Isn't it both amazingly satisfying and utterly disgusting to steam the carpets?

[janedavitt]

It is!!!

[laurie_ky]

I'm always amazed at how much mud and dirt are hidden. I need to do mine again. And my daughter called while I was typing this and is going to come on Sunday for a few days, with the baby, so guess what I'll be doing tomorrow.

(He's crawling now and makes a bee-line for anything we miss that he can put in his mouth.

Laurie

[janedavitt]

I remember that stage :-) Have fun with him!