Keeping your carpet dry inside your house is important for your family’s health and for keeping your home looking great throughout the year. Keeping moisture away from your carpets is especially paramount during the rainy season. Everyone coming into the house with wet shoes or muddy paws can wreak havoc on your beautiful wall-to-wall carpeting.
Rugs and carpets can also be victims of accidental liquid spills like water, wine, or juice. Knowing how to keep these dry all year long will help your home looking and smelling great.
Here are 8 reasons why you should always keep your carpet dry and how to keep it that way.
Bacteria
Your carpets are a bit like sponges. When you walk on them, they catch everything on your feet or shoes. All these things get stuck in between the hairs of the carpet and start to fester. The worst of it comes in with your wet shoes and on your pets’ wet paws. The best way to prevent this particular problem is to install a no-shoes policy inside the house, in which the shoes get left at the door or preferable in a closet.
In regards to your dog, they can either wear booties when outside or you can clean their paws with wet wipes as soon as you step in the door. It’s best to teach this to puppies as older dogs might take longer to get used to it.
Bad Smell
Spills are almost impossible to prevent, they will always happen no matter how careful you are. When wet things spill on carpets and don’t get dried quickly, they can get very smelly. If a stinky liquid spills on your carpet such as the liquid from a jar of pickles, the smell can potentially stay forever.
Other liquids that might seem harmless like milk or chamomile tea can rot and start to smell, little by little, to the point of becoming unbearable.
Always clean spills as soon as they happen. For smelly stains, absorb all the liquid with a dry cloth and then spread some baking soda on the spill. Leave the baking soda on the spill for up to 24 hours. Afterward, collect the baking soda with a vacuum cleaner.
Stains
Like we said before, spills are unpreventable. Colorful spills can be the worst because they make a stain right away. Soft drinks with orange or red colors are especially terrible for light colored carpets. But believe it or not, spilled water that isn’t dried straightaway can also leave an unsightly stain over time.
The best way to dry up wet spills is to dab at it with a towel or clean rag. For colorful stains, the cleanup might need some rubbing with dish soap. This is followed by a rinse rub and then plenty of dabbing with a dry cloth and an extra dose of baking soda.
Mold
No matter how the carpet gets wet, be it from accidental spills or from a flood, the carpet can eventually get moldy. Mold can grow over time very slowly and you won’t even notice it. Mold doesn’t always smell bad, but breathing it can be very bad for your health.
Your pets and kids who are usually closer to the carpet might be affected before you are. The ways to know if your carpet is moldy is to smell it close up and check for black, green, or white growth on the hairs. Allergies are also a great indication of mold in the carpets.
Rot
Even worse than mold, carpets can also become rotten. When carpets become extremely wet, like with a big flood, it might not be dried completely. The underside of the carpet is much harder to dry and sometimes might stay wet no matter how much you dry it.
The padding and the base of the carpet could rot completely, creating even more health problems for your family. If a carpet rots, it might not have an easy solution. It might need to be completely removed and the floor dried professionally before a new one can be installed.
Pests
Moist environments like wet carpets can be a breeding ground for microscopic pests. Silverfish, for example, love wet environments. Did someone spill a glass of water behind the couch and no one dried it, because it was “just” water?
There could be a mini-environment growing there, a perfect habitat for some not-so-welcome visitors. The best way to keep these pests at bay is to always dry spills immediately. It is best to regularly vacuum the carpets in your house, from wall to wall and especially under the furniture.
Stained Carpets Can Make Your House Look Bad
It’s easy for carpets to stain from spills, floods, and badly dried kid accidents. These stains can make not only your carpet look bad, but also the rest of your house. Even if your decor and furniture are on point, that dark stain in your cream-colored carpet will call attention first.
These stains can sometimes be sorted out with deep cleaning like baking soda and dish soap. Otherwise, you can contact a professional service to do the job for you. They can either use chemicals or do a wet wash with the help of a wet vacuum.
Stained Carpets Make Selling A House More Difficult
If you are selling a house or putting one on the rental market, the carpets need to look their best. If the house or apartment is yours then you have probably been taking care of the carpets and doing your best to keep them dry.
If your house was rented out, the tenants might not have been as careful. Show this article to your next tenants! Explain to them the importance of keeping the carpets clean. If your carpets need some deep cleaning or a complete redo, contact a professional to do a great job.
So How Dry Are Your Own Carpets?
Now that you know how important it is to keep carpets dry, have you been taking such care of your own carpets? There’s no need to become anxious about potential spills, you just need to have a system in place for quick dry-ups or some preventive methods.
The biggest and most important preventive method is the no-shoes policy. If the wet area is too big for a home remedy, don’t hesitate to contact a professional rug cleaner