Happy New Year!
Good Day Home Services is here to help you keep your home or office clean and looking good throughout this New Year!
Let me give you some tips on how to care for your carpet and other fabrics.
People often ask me what I recommend they use to spot clean their carpet.
Here are some suggestions; first of all I do not recommend any store bought spot cleaners such as Rug Doctor, Folex, Resolve, Spot Shot or anything being sold to the public for carpet spot cleaning.
No professional carpet cleaners are using those products. Yes they can remove a spot but they leave chemicals and soapy residue in the carpet that is difficult to rinse out and causes other problems such as color fading, discoloration and are guaranteed to eventually ruin your carpet.
If you want to do some spot cleaning yourself here are some things I highly recommend
1) For a food spill, the first thing you should use is cold water and a towel to try to get it up.
You don’t have to scrub the carpet hard and should not use a stiff brush, as that will fray the carpet fibers. Just clean it gently.
If it left a greasy spot you can mix a tiny bit of mild dish soap with water and use a rag to gently clean it.
Use distilled water for carpet, area rugs and other fabrics such as dining chairs. Distilled water has a Neutral ph. Tap water has high alkalinity and can cause a brownish water stain on sensitive fabrics
2) Gummy spots: use ammonia (do not use ammonia on wool carpet or wool area rugs or other sensitive fabrics). You can also use a product sold at Home Depot called “Goof off” in moderation.
3) Odors (caused by pet urine, food, mildew, mold, vomit, etc.); use Pure Distilled Vinegar. (Do not use a product called “cleaning vinegar” on carpet because it has other chemical detergents in it that you do not want in your carpet.)
If you have a pet this is a very important thing to use regularly to treat pee spots.
How it works: a) pet urine contains what are called “urine salts” the urine salts are what the bacteria live on. b) The bacteria cause the bad odor.
Vinegar is mildly acidic and dissolves the urine salts. Vinegar also has powerful anti bacterial properties. The anti bacterial properties kill the bacteria and also work on mildew, mold etc.
Pour enough vinegar on the affected area to soak into the backing of the carpet and into the padding where the urine is.
If you are not sure how much to use, try pouring a cup or a glass full at a time, depending on the size of the affected area, until you feel you have sufficiently wetted the area with vinegar. Keep this up weekly until the odor is gone.
Vinegar is what you should be using to treat your pet odor spots.
Yes, your house will smell like a salad for a bit, but that’s better than the smell of urine in your carpet. The vinegar smell eventually fades away and the bad odors along with it.
4) Organic Stains. An organic stain is defined as a stain caused by organic matter like food, pee, blood etc. Not an artificial stain caused by a dye or artificial coloring.
For an organic stain use hydrogen peroxide (Do not use hydrogen peroxide on wool rugs). Lightly spray some hydrogen peroxide on your stain with a spray bottle. Let it sit for 15 minutes or so and then lightly spay it again with a little bit of distilled water to neutralize it.
If you are trying this on a white sofa or dining chair with sensitive fabric, use distilled water to neutralize it. Tap water can leave a water stain due to its high alkalinity. Sensitive fabrics do not like high alkaline. Distilled water has a Neutral ph.
Many of these cleaning remedies can also be used on ceramic tile.
If you have ceramic/porcelain tile I recommend cleaning it with ammonia or mild dish soap and water for the tough areas and general cleaning with vinegar and water mixture.
Do not clean travertine, limestone, marble or any other stone tiles with vinegar or ammonia.
If you have travertine, limestone or other type of stone tiles you want to use a product called Neutral Stone cleaner. Home Depot sells a Neutral Stone Cleaner in their cleaning section with the band name “Dep.” You can also order a Neutral Stone Cleaner online from a company called “Stone Pro.”
Use only a Neutral Stone Cleaner on your stone if you are doing it yourself or are using a Maid service. Do not use anything else.
Maid services frankly do not know what to use on stone and if you are using a Maids service you will need to provide it for them. Otherwise they may just use a product like Pine Sol because it “smells clean” and in doing so will destroy your stone tile and grout lines of your ceramic and porcelain tiles.
Never use Pine Sol or similar products on your ceramic, stone or porcelain tiles.
Pine Sol leaves a horrible residue on your tile and in the grout that is very difficult to strip off and will factually ruin your beautiful stone or the grout lines of your ceramic and porcelain tiles by deeply embedding itself in.
Tile and grout is very easy to care for so long as you never use Pine Sol or similar products on it.
Follow these instructions if you plan to do it yourself in between cleanings.
Call Good Day Home Services at regular intervals during the year to maintain your floors and fabrics with a professional cleaning.
When you call me out to clean your floors and fabrics I can apply a stain protector or a sealer to your tile that will protect against staining.
If you have wool or fine area rugs I can clean them for you at your home or office location or I can take them to the Fine Rugs Cleaning Center for a thorough cleaning.
If you have a sofa or chairs that get a lot of use, have me clean them cleaned this year.
Good Day Home Services is here to serve you!
If you have any questions or want to make an appointment you can reach me at:
Office: 714 884 3778
Brian’s Cell: 714 287 0786