My Good News First

I’ve tried so many things, including the store-bought cleaners, mixing hot water, a little bleach & vinegar. Nothing seems to be working. Does anyone know what does work? Of course I know having the professional carpet cleaners come in is the best but I cannot afford this right now.
The carpet color is a little off-white & it’s a berber type….

thanks!

fact set the stain permanently. The fact that you’ve said you’ve tried lots of things tend to suggest that nothing you might try yourself will work. You’ve also not said anything about what stained the carpet, which means no one here can truly suggest anything productive, as the cleaning of stains tends to be as specific as whatever made the stain.

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A professional company is coming to the house next week to clean the carpets. They use a dry tech type product where they sprinkle this chemical into the carpet, scrub in them vacuum up. There is some but very minimal water involved. That’s a plus to us because we’ve used the steamers and shampooers before with bad results. I just still can’t wrap my brain around how some powder is going to really clean the carpet…

Hi, this type of cleaning product, is corn husks impregnated with a cleaning solution and is a very good method. The company will pre vacuum your carpet and as you say brush them into your carpet, leave them there for a while, then vacuum them out. Your carpet will be dry in 30 mins. Obviously you are worried with the term ‘chemical’; ask for a safety data sheet so you know what is being used. Ask if they do hot water extraction (steam cleaning) but it is not, it is hot water. There are many eco solutions that can be used that are made from plants and are very safe. If you type the word "Host" into your browser, you will be able to read about the dry cleaning method. Hope this helps. I am an IICRC certified cleaner.

I have an off-white berber carpet throughout much of my house. It’s looking a little grubby and is stained (just dirt, I think…not food or juice) a bit, and I’m wondering whether it’s worth it to hire professional carpet cleaners to clean it. Or should I just buy a steamer (like, one of the $150-200 ones) to do most of it myself? Should I get the carpet cleaners to do a great job once and then get the steamer for upkeep later? I’m not really sure of the pros and cons, so hopefully someone out there knows!

With an off-white carpet, I think I’d do both. Use your own cleaner to keep the traffic areas from getting really grubby and for dealing with any stains before they really set in, and once in a while hire someone to do a deep clean on the whole thing.

We have 3 bedrooms and a hallway that REALLY need it from pet stains.

We live in a large city, but I would just like to have some idea before the cleaners get here.

Anyone??

The national average price for carpet cleaning is about 22 cents per square foot. That usually means each room is about $30 – $40 to clean.

The following is the cost of cleaning 3 bedrooms and a hall from three different carpet cleaning companies (Estimates were calculated on their websites).

Stanley Steemer = $138
Chem Dry = $140
Chem Clean = $110

It looks like the cost will be somewhere between $100 – $150 depending on which company you use. (Keep in mind, these are the averages, I know some cheaper companies would do it for as little as $60 although you will probably get the cleaning you pay for.)

If you have a very severe odor problem from pet stains there will be an additional charge for a pet treatment which can be fairly expensive. It would be unlikely that you could get an exact estimate for pet odor removal without someone coming out to your house to examine the severity of the problem. However, at the company I work for, an average charge for pet odor removal is about $50 – $100 per room depending on the amount of pet odor treatment solution that is needed.

Hope that helps!

My carpet is 8 yrs old. Its dirty, I already hired some professional carpet cleaners but the dirty color is still there. It was a Cream color before, now its like brown-ish or something like that. Any suggestions? I do not want to buy new carpet, I dont have the money for that right now.

Sounds like you hired the wrong professional cleaners, they did not pretreat. Need to hire a professional that guarantees their work, uses pretreat, and uses steam extraction with high heat and good suction. Good cleaning with good chemicals will clean any staining. The carpet also needs to dry quickly, else the staining will wick back. The surface is the last part to dry, and the dampness will pull any leftover dirt up from the padding.