Carpet Cleaning Advice for Homeowners and Tenants.

What sort of carpet (cheap or expensive) is best for you and, which one cleans the best and has the longest life for wear and tear?

These are questions I get asked a lot from home owners and tenants, so here is some advice for both. But the important things to remember is what situation the carpet is being used for.

Some of the cheaper carpets clean up very well with a carpet dry clean or a steam clean, but they may not last as long as a more expensive carpet.

Whether you have a cheaper carpet or more expensive one, they will both still be vulnerable to staining. So it’s important with any stain that it be removed as soon as possible. If it’s left to long, there is a greater chance of it causing permanent damage or discolouration to the fibres, and this also goes for so called stain resistant carpet.

So it depends on where the carpet is going and how much traffic it is expected to handle. Most people with rentals put the cheaper carpet in as it may need replacing every few years due to heavy traffic.

The reason most will not use a more expensive carpet in rental properties is because they require a lot more care and attention and a regular clean. And this doesn’t happen with renters; most renters just get the carpets cleaned when they are vacating as this is a requirement of their lease.

Advice for Renters

As a renter, it pays to have the carpets cleaned on a more regular basis, such as every twelve months, this will help to protect your bond when leaving a rental property. If there is any damage to the carpet, the agent will do their up most to keep your bond money.

So when renting a property, take pictures of the carpet on the day you move in and have them filed and try to look after the carpet as it does save you a whole heap of headache on exit day.  Tenants can now have Best 1 come out to their rental and do an assessment of the whole property before moving in. This is then filed and can be used if an agent is trying to keep the bond money back for claims that may have happened with a different tenant.

Advice for Homeowners

The landlords or the property owners must also understand that there is such a thing as fair wear and tear. If you want to own a rental property it’s best to understand that every 5-10 years there’s a good chance that it will need a re-paint and possibly new carpets.

Not all tenants are bad, and in most cases, they do their best to keep the property in good shape and try to leave it in the same condition they found it in.

With the more expensive carpets that homeowners would choose, it’s important to remember that they need a lot of care and regular professional cleaning. This is one mistake that people make; they think because it’s an expensive carpet that it can go years without having a steam or dry clean done.

But this isn’t the case the top end of carpets need a lot of looking after, especially if they are a thick pile carpet. If they aren’t properly vacuumed on regular basis, dirt and grid builds up in the base of the pile and starts to wear and damage the fibres.

Carpets should be vacuumed at least 3 times per week and more if they have to handle a lot of traffic from a big family or kids. So if you are going down the track of putting an expensive carpet in your home, also invest in a good quality power-headed vacuum cleaner, something like a “Dyson.” They are expensive but they do a very good job of keeping your carpets clean between your professional carpet cleaning visits.

It’s recommended that carpets be steam or dry cleaned every 12 months, and this is for both renters and home owners. Having your carpets professionally cleaned every twelve months will help to remove dust mites and bacteria from the carpet fibres, keeping you home safe for the whole family.