Carpet cleaning that's worth it!

Image Cleaning Systems is an Orem-based carpet cleaning service that actually does the job right, so I want to let you guys know about it.

Here’s the deal: this guy just got frustrated with shoddy workmanship, so he started up his own gig. He wanted to do the job right, so now he does it himself. Here are a few tips I picked up about carpet cleaning from this guy.

My wife and I have a few nephews still in diapers, so sometimes spit-up can be a bit of a concern. Have you ever tried to get that stuff out of your carpet? Not fun. Even when you think you’ve got it taken care of, they can magically reappear. After one event of particular violent spit-up, we had a mess to clean up and a welcoming party for our new apartment in a couple days. Our friendly Orem carpet cleaner couldn’t make it out for a day or two because he had that many appointments, so here’s what we tried until he could show up:

The supplies:

·         Baking soda

·         Club soda

·         Washrags

·         Water

·         Spray bottle

·         Detergent or OxyClean

·         Old toothbrush

The method:

We toweled up everything we could first (thanks, Quicker Picker Upper). If you have a spectacular carpet and want to make sure all traces of chunkiness is gone, use that old toothbrush. Our carpet is lame and we needed the apartment carpets cleaned, anyway (lame landlord), so we figured the towel did the job.

Then we put down a layer of baking soda right over the offending area. Then (after a trip to the grocery store for club soda and a spray bottle), we sprayed club soda over the baking soda. The result? Alka-Seltzer on our bedroom floor.

The problem with cleaning stains out of the carpet yourself is that most people have a tendency to rub their carpet thin. When you scrub the carpet, you tear at its backing until you’ve nearly compromised that area of the carpet. Now instead of preserving the look of the carpet, you’ve actually worn it out. With that being said, my wife and I used wash rags and DABBED the area until we got the soda out.

It looked great, but we knew these stains had a tendency to come back. Some people use OxyClean for this part, but we’re poor, so laundry detergent was our way to go. We mixed a capful of detergent into a gallon of water and started applying. It’s just like a concentrated wash in the washer machine, minus the machine.

If you’ve got to soak the heck out of your carpet just to make yourself feel better, I can’t stop you. Soaking the backing weakens the glue, though, so make sure you have a wet/dry vac if you get over-zealous. Let the concoction stand for a couple of hours and get it out with towels (and/or your wet/dry vac). The stain was gone for our party, and the Orem carpet cleaner (also found on Google as a Provo carpet cleaner) came later and did an astounding job at a stellar price on the rest of the apartment.