January 24th, 2022 by Chris Chapman

Your carpet is something that you’ll see every day. With that in mind, you might not think it’s possible for your carpet to surprise you, but the truth is that it hides some pretty disgusting secrets! Below, we’ll walk you through ten things you might not have realised about your carpet, so you’ll know what to look for. More importantly, we'll also tell you how to protect and revive it, making it look better than ever before!

Sandy Soil is Tearing it Apart from Within

If you get down and closely inspect your carpet, parting the fibres with your hands, you might be surprised at what you find! You’ll probably find something that looks a bit like a beach – your carpet pile will be full of sand! These tiny particles of grit come from soil, left behind after the darker clay-like dirt gets brushed away. The bits of sand that remain will work their way down the carpet pile, settling at the bottom and resisting the efforts of your vacuum cleaner.

Now, you might be thinking that as you didn’t even know this sand was there until you looked, it’s not that big a deal. Unfortunately, ignoring this problem is the worst thing you can do. These tiny particles of sand are rough and sharp, and they don’t simply sit harmlessly in your carpet – they move around as you walk over the carpet and shift the fibres around. You can probably see where this is going! Over time, these grains of sand will slice and tear at the base of your carpet fibres, eventually chopping them off at the root. This can – and will - lead to bald patches and split fibres, causing your carpet to look drab and worn.

You Can’t Rely on Vacuuming Alone

You might think that regular vacuuming of your carpets is enough to keep them looking pristine, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. While it certainly helps clear away the top layer of dust (the results will vary depending on the quality of your vacuum), even the very best vacuum cleaners will struggle to pull dirt from the bottom of the carpet pile. If you have a plush carpet or a thick rug, this problem will be even worse!

2 x 5L Pro-Kleen Ocean Fresh Carpet Shampoo

Price: £25.96

Buy Now

The only solution is to use some specialist carpet shampoo, such as our Pro-Kleen Carpet Shampoo, to properly deep clean every fibre. Our foaming formula can be used by hand or in a carpet cleaning machine – both methods give the same great results as it soaks into the bottom of the pile, breaking down dirt and lifting it higher up towards the surface. By teasing dirt further up the pile and loosening its grip on the carpet fibres, you can simply wipe up and vacuum to finish and deliver amazing results! This doesn’t just keep your carpet looking great, but it also ensures it stays healthy and helps prevent damage from sand particles within the pile.

Carpets Attract Dirt

Why do carpets attract so much dirt anyway? It seems like they try to pull dirt in no matter how careful you are. There are two reasons for this. The first is simple static electricity, which makes your carpet act like a magnet for tiny particles of dirt. A very simple explanation for this is that static occurs when two objects rub against one another. As you might imagine, the fibres of your carpet rub together a lot when you walk across them, so they’ll quickly build up a constant low-level charge. This charge isn’t noticeable – you won’t have lightning crackling in your living room or anything – but it is substantial enough to constantly attract dust particles that float through the air.

As if that wasn’t enough, your carpet is coated in a sort of greasy residue that comes from dead skin, oils from hair and pet fur, dropped food crumbs, and more. This causes dirt to stick to your carpet fibres like glue. So you have to deal with static drawing dirt onto the carpet, and this oily residue ensuring it stays stuck there! At least, it’s stuck there until it’s disturbed by something – more on this later.

Carpets Can Hold a Lot of Weight

You probably know a bit about microfibre, and why they’re so good at cleaning and trapping dirt. Essentially, they’re made of split fibres, which dramatically increases their surface area and means they can hold a lot more dirt. Unfortunately for you, your carpet is essentially the same thing, spread across your whole floor. The average carpet can hold roughly four times its own weight in dirt! That means, if you haven’t cleaned your carpet in a while, it’ll probably be stuffed full of dead skin, dust, food crumbs, soil, dust mites, pollen, and more.

They’re a Nightmare for Allergies

As you might expect, all of this dust and dirt is a nightmare if you suffer from allergies. It encourages dust mites – microscopic organisms that feed on dead skin cells. Now, dust mites are usually harmless, and they’re so small that you won’t even notice they exist in normal circumstances. However, if they appear in great enough numbers, they can trigger quite severe allergies with similar symptoms to hayfever. Symptoms can range from mildly annoying, such as a runny nose and sore eyes, to more severe problems like throat inflammation and breathing difficulties.

When you vacuum or walk across a very dirty carpet, that can disturb the dust within, causing it to start circulating around the room again. This means you’re more likely to breathe it in, aggravating those allergies and giving you a real (sometimes literal) headache.

They Can Make You Ill

Dust mites aren’t the only living things that make their home in a dirty carpet. Bacteria and viral cells can be found there, too. As you might expect, these potentially harmful bacteria will waste no time in multiplying inside your carpet. If you notice a stale, musty smell coming from your carpet, it’s highly likely that bacteria in the pile is the culprit. In fact, studies have shown that your carpet has around 4,000 times more bacteria than your toilet seat! Also, viruses such as Norovirus can survive in a carpet for between four to six weeks, so think twice about popping that dropped bit of food into your mouth straight from the carpet. The five-second rule won’t save you!

Some Stains Remain, Even After You Clean Them

There are some types of stains that leave their mark on your carpet even after they’ve been visibly cleaned. Unfortunately, they’re the least pleasant kind of stains – urine, faeces, and other bodily fluids. These stains leave behind proteins that will cling to your carpet even after you clean up the offending fluid. These proteins, in turn, provide a food source for bacteria. This bacteria is what makes the carpet smell so bad. If you have pets, be aware that cats often cause worse smells than dogs as they have a more protein-rich diet, which means they pass more proteins out in their pee. You can clean the stain up time after time, but until you get rid of those proteins, the smell will keep coming back, and it’ll be even worse if the stain was caused by your cat!

5L Odour Attack Pet Carpet Cleaning Solution with Urine Neutraliser

A unique carpet cleaner specially formulated with active enzymes for use in homes with pets, Odour Attack! for Pets destroys the source of carpet odour to leave your carpet smelling fresh.

Price: £24.95

Buy Now

To break down these proteins, you need a specialist carpet-cleaning product that’s designed to deal with them. Our Odour Attack! carpet shampoo is uniquely formulated with enzymes that digest proteins, breaking down those foul odours at the source and leaving behind a fresh, clean scent.

Most People Wear Dirty Shoes on Carpets

Studies have shown that 75% of people wear their shoes on their carpet. That means all those germs, bits of dirt, soil, pollen, and more that you’ve been stepping in outside is going to be transferred onto your carpet. If you have guests round, that goes for them too – and you don’t know where they’ve been walking. Even worse, wearing shoes doesn’t just track dirt into a carpet, but it also grinds it in, compacting it down into the pile and making it tougher to remove.

Secrets are Hiding Under Your Rug

Rugs pose problems that carpets don’t – namely, you have to worry about what’s hiding under the rug, not just what’s on top of or inside it. The real issue with a rug is moisture – even if you stick it firmly down with tape, it won’t sit firmly flush with the floor across its whole surface area. This means moisture and bits of dirt can get beneath the rug, where they’ll stay trapped. When you add in warmth – rugs effectively act as a blanket that traps heat close to the floor – you end up with the perfect breeding ground for mould.

Mould spores are everywhere, with black mould being the most common. All they need is somewhere moist and dark to grow, and the underside of a rug presents them with the perfect opportunity to do just that. Now, you can’t do much about the moisture or the dark, but you can limit their food source by regularly cleaning any dirt from beneath your rug regularly.  

They Need Regular Cleaning

As you might expect, all of the above means you should aim to clean your carpets fairly regularly, both with a vacuum and with carpet shampoo. But how often should you do it? It’s not practical (or advisable) to do a full shampoo session every week, but you should aim to run your vacuum around two to three times every week. We recommend shampooing your carpets at least twice a year, preferably four times a year (or once every three months) to keep them in top condition.

A carpet cleaning machine is a wise investment, but if you’re using our carpet shampoo, it’s not necessary. You can use it inside a carpet cleaner, but it can also be used by hand, so if you only have a small carpet or a rug to clean you can easily get the job done with a bit of elbow grease.