Just imagine one day coming home, and seeing your “brand new” carpet dirty, messy and heavily stained. How long has it been since you brought it home from the store – two months, three, maybe? When did it get so dirty, and why are you noticing it just now? All these are good questions, but what you should really be asking yourself is how often you should get professional carpet cleaning.

No one denies that carpet cleaning services are rather expensive, especially in this economy, but can you really afford not to call in the experts when your carpet is obviously in bad shape? Leaving your carpet without regular deep cleaning would do much more harm than you can imagine: it will shorten its lifespan; it will decrease the air quality in your home; it will distract the eye from your beautiful interior design to the shabby looks of the carpet; and etc.

Professional carpet cleaners will never tell you that there is a specific timetable you should follow when deciding how often to deep clean your carpet. On the contrary, a real expert will explain that you need to take into account a couple of factors like:

High traffic or low traffic:

The difference between cleaning a carpet in a high traffic zone, and one in low traffic area is huge, and you must have noticed it in your everyday life. While the latter can survive with vacuum cleaning once a week, and professional carpet cleaning once a year, or even every two years, the carpets, placed in the so called “hot” zones, need to be vacuum cleaned almost daily (at least 4 times a week). As far as professional carpet cleaning is concerned, it has to be done twice a year, or in extreme conditions every 3 months.

Kids & Pets:

Firstly, if you have kids, you should take their age into account. Toddlers love to spend as much time as you will allow them crawling on the carpet (sometimes drooling on it, too), so you need to be certain that the carpet is bacteria-, mould-, dirt- and, even, hair-free, before you allow your precious little bandit to play on the floor. With preschoolers, young children, and teenagers, you can expect to discover a whole new definition of the term “dirty carpet”, and as a consequence, you should clean your carpet more, and more often.

Almost the same goes for pets. They are part of your family, and just like kids, they tend to leave quite the mess behind. In addition, you can expect to find extra pet hair on the carpet, and the occasional “accident”, which if not treated immediately can damage your carpet permanently, and even a monthly professional carpet cleaning can’t save it.

In conclusion, with kids and/ or pets in the house, you should budget regular carpet cleaning sessions, as often as you can afford it. In case, professional carpet cleaning isn’t an option, you can consider buying a DIY-carpet-cleaning-kit, however, there are risks like over-saturating the carpet, or misapplication of cleaning products, when an expert isn’t around.

Health problems:

If someone in your family is prone to allergies, or has respiratory problems, regular carpet cleaning at least every three months is a must.