Carpet Cleaning Blog

Think your indoor environment is cleaner and safer than what you are exposed to outside every day?

Evidence compiled from a number of respected studies is now sufficient to overturn that long-held popular belief.

Allergy sufferers in particular are often chagrined to discover that many of the worst allergy triggers actually live indoors with them. In particular, allergens and toxins often hide deep down in the fibers of your carpeting.

In this post, learn about four key ways having your carpet professionally cleaned can improve your health.

1. Wave goodbye to dust mite colonies

According to the Asthma Society of Canada, most carpeting is chock-full of dust mite colonies.

The Canada Safety Council reports that while dust mites themselves do not cause allergies or asthma, their shedding and droppings do. In fact, dust mites are the most common indoor allergen in Canada today, causing hay fever, asthma, skin rashes, and other reactions.

Dust mites have a symbiotic relationship with us: they eat the dead skin flakes we shed. More than a thousand dust mites can live on a single particle of dust.

Since dust mites prefer warm abodes with higher humidity levels, they naturally gravitate to warm, private spaces, like deep down in the fibers of your carpeting. Because dust mites have powerful suction pads on the end of each tiny foot, vacuuming won't be able to pry them loose from the fibers.

Professional carpet cleaning can go where no regular vacuum can access, using powerful scrubbing and turbo-vacuum action to pry dust mites loose and remove all their detritus along with them.

2. Enjoy cleaner, healthier indoor air

Carpeting sure can feel great when you are home and can pad across it without having to put on socks or shoes to cushion your feet.

Unfortunately, the action of moving across the carpet can trigger a spontaneous uprising of trapped pollutants that promptly begin circulating in your indoor air supply.

In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calls this phenomenon "sinks," since the pollutants "sink" into the carpet fibers, only to get stirred up when the carpet is disturbed.

It doesn't take long for those same pollutants to enter your body as you breathe in, causing allergies and respiratory distress, as well as sore throats, coughing, runny nose, and headache.

Common pollutants that accumulate in the fibers of household and office carpeting include dust, pet dander, bug droppings and sheddings, dust mites, mould spores, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from cleaning and craft products, dirt, pollen, airborne pesticides, and other toxins.

Here again, simple vacuuming, no matter how frequent, not only cannot remove all of these trapped pollutants, but can actually make allergies and reactions worse, since every movement of the vacuum across the carpet will trigger another uprising of trapped toxins into the air for you to breathe in.

Instead, it is important to have your carpets professionally cleaned at least once annually, and more frequently in high traffic areas, so the pollutants are neutralized and removed in bulk.

3. Stop worrying about mould and mildew

Because it is warmer and moister deep in the carpet fibers than it is in other areas in your home, this represents a prime place where mould and mildew can grow and proliferate.

This is never truer than during the high-humidity summer months and in bathrooms, laundry rooms, and any room where a humidifier runs regularly, such as in a child's or elder's room.

You might wonder how the damp and humidity gets into your carpet fibers. Often, it is tracked in from outside on your feet! Pets are also notorious moisture movers, as are small children with wobbly grips on juice boxes and water cups.

Even in winter, moisture can enter from rain, sleet, ice, and snow that is tracked in, keeping the deepest layer of your carpet more humid and dank than you would expect.

Once mould spores take root and begin to grow, they can spread with relative ease. It might take you some time to detect the faint whiff of mildew rising, or you might not even notice it amid the many other household scents competing for your nose's attention.

Vacuuming, of course, does nothing to address the moisture trapped in your carpet. Only professional carpet cleaning can penetrate the upper layer of carpeting and dig down deep to extricate mould spores, mildew, and moisture trapped at the base levels.

4. Enjoy your new carpet without the hazards of "new carpet smell"

No matter how popular hardwood or tile flooring becomes, carpeting will always have its own strong and loyal fan club.

Even as more focus is placed on cleaner, "greener," sustainable carpeting options such as bamboo, hemp, and organic cotton, the process of making fibrous matter into carpeting can be a toxic one.

Sadly, the same people who remind us that we can no longer safely enjoy "new car smell" are also behind the demise of our enjoyment of "new carpet smell." That scent, which we used to inhale in blissful ignorance, we now know to be a particularly toxic blend of VOCs that has been implicated in everything from the sniffles to cancer.

As you might imagine, there isn't anything you can do on your own to get rid of new carpet smell faster. But your professional carpet cleaner can! The powerful process of professional-grade carpet cleaning can suck those VOCs right up and out of your carpeting and safely remove them from your home or office for good.

Contact Crystal Clean Services

Here at Crystal Clean Services, we have more than three decades of expertise in cleaning carpets of all ages, fibers, styles, and sizes. From delicate hand-detail cleaning to carpet-wide dry foam treatments, give us a few hours of your time and we will hand you back a like-new, clean, safe, and beautiful carpet!

Visit our contact page to find our nearest location to you.