You'll Never Buy Expensive Carpet Cleaner Again!

If you have kids and you have carpeting in your home, chances are there are times when you are ready to rip it up because it's just easier than trying to keep it looking decent. Trust me, my kids have smashed and spilled anything and everything on what little carpeting we have in our house.

My floors were in need of some serious TLC. I had mentioned to my husband recently that he was going to come home one of these day to find I had ripped all the carpeting out. He laughed, but I was being serious. As a matter of fact, just this morning I went looking for the crowbar because I was bound and determined to fix the eye sore that was my floors.

I've been pretty frustrated with it especially lately because both my vacuum and my steam vac decided they were going to stop working. Not only could I not scrub my carpets, but I couldn't even vacuum them. As you can imagine, in a household where there's a toddler constantly running around and dropping and smearing things all over the place, this was a clean freak's worst nightmare.

I had just decided I couldn't handle it anymore and suddenly became "Mommy Fix-It". I managed to get the steam vac working after discovering that the problem was just a rubber seal had loosened causing it to not get enough suction to clean the solution off the floor. Then came my next problem. No solution and no money to go buy solution.

I have been known to use various things from my cupboards to clean my house on other occasions when money was tight and I was out of cleaning products. I use white vinegar to clean just about everything from counter tops and sinks to my floors as well as baking soda and Dawn dish liquid. So I thought, it can't be hard to figure out some sort of solution for my carpets using what I already have. Pinterest was a God send in this case! I found a recipe using only white vinegar, peroxide, Dawn, and fabric softener.

What you'll need:

1/2 Cup Hydrogen Peroxide

4 tbsp. Vinegar

4 tbsp. Dawn Dish washing Liquid

1/2 Cup Downey Fabric Softener (I just used some generic brand)

Mix all ingredients together in a bucket and add to your machine as directed by the manufacturer. In my case, I added it and filled the solution bucket for my steam vac to the fill line with warm water. I also upped the peroxide and vinegar amount slightly, but I wouldn't over do it. 

After hours of working on it and going over the same spots multiple times to make sure it was really clean, I have to say, I'm impressed. Maybe I'm just impressed very easily, but I can tell the difference. The carpeting in our house wasn't even this clean when we bought the place. 

Honestly, it looks a lot better in person. And I had initially thought the fabric softener was to give it a fresh scent, but after walking on the carpet I see that it also (obviously) softens the carpet fibers. As far as stains, It got many of them out that I didn't think would ever lift out of the carpet and the ones that it couldn't get out completely, it lightened them so they are barely noticeable. I'd recommend trying it out. I thought for sure my carpets were a lost cause, but as I'm sitting here looking at it, I'm actually pretty pleased with it.