How Often Should I Clean My Carpet?

How often should I clean my carpet? Well, because there are a number of things that go into cleaning a carpet and there are a number of ways to clean a carpet, there isn’t one general answer to this question.

So, what we will do in this article is to go through a number of these factors and we believe that will help you determine the right frequency for cleaning your carpets. Now, let’s get to it.

What Kind Of Cleaning Are We Looking At?

This is probably the first thing to think about. When we talk about cleaning carpets, we are looking at both vacuuming and what you could call a washing.

Washing a carpet isn’t something that you’ll need to do everyday, especially considering that you might need to seek professional help. 

Also, washing a carpet is something that sometimes involves the use of moisture which will need some time to dry. So, you can already see why you won’t need to do that everyday.

However, there are some people that are on the other extreme and do not think that their carpets need to be washed at all. These people usually think that vacuuming their carpets is all there needs to be done.

Now, vacuuming is important and depending on certain other factors, you might need to do it every day. However, vacuuming is not all there is to keeping your carpets clean.

In fact, most carpet manufacturers recommend that you get your carpets professionally cleaned at least once every two years if you have any hopes of prolonging the life of the carpets.

Over the weeks and months, your carpet would have collected a lot of grease and grime which cannot be removed by a vacuum cleaner, hence, the need for a washing.

Lastly, some people choose to do this by themselves. However, because of the use of moisture and how easy it is for a damp carpet to breed mold, we usually like to leave that to the professionals.

How Many People Live In Your Home?

This is one of the most important determinants of how frequently you need to clean your carpets. The more people there are in your space, the more frequently your carpets need to be cleaned.

Some people say that one rule of thumb you could use for the frequency of vacuuming your carpets is to vacuum one day for every person (or animal) that lives in your home.

So, if there are seven (7) or more people and/or animals living in your home, you’ll have to vacuum every single day.

Something else to consider is kids. If you have kids, you might need to vacuum even more frequently than the rule of thumb suggests, especially if said kids are still babies or toddlers.

The frequency of steaming or washing will also be determined by how many people are living in your home.

If your house is heavily populated, you might need professional help every 3 months, if you can manage it.

Less populated households could go once every six months or one year. And if it is just you, you might not need to seek professional help until it’s been one year and six months.

Does The Carpet Have Heavy Traffic?

Now, irrespective of how many people are living in your home, you could actually get away with cleaning less frequently if your carpet is not in a spot with heavy traffic.

So, if you only have carpets in your room or any other room where people (and pets) don’t often go, vacuuming once a week and steaming once in eighteen months could be just fine.

On the other hand, your area rugs and welcome mats could do with more frequent washings, regardless of how many people are in your home.

Area rugs and welcome mats are easy to pull out, so you could take them out and wash them, say once every three (3) to six (6) months.

Spot Cleaning

Finally, while we’ve talked about vacuuming and steam cleaning your carpet daily and weekly and stuff, it is important that you know that this does not apply to stains and spots.

If anything has been spilled on your carpet or your pet has deposited something because they are yet to be potty trained, cleaning up the spill immediately is your best bet for saving your carpet.

Do not leave spots to turn into stains by saving them for ‘cleaning day’ because as the saying goes, ‘a stitch in time saves nine’.