Keeping high-traffic areas clean when the kids are out of school

A DC Carpet Cleaning Professional’s Guide to Keeping High-Traffic Areas Clean When the Kids Are Out of School

Spring has sprung, and that means that summer is right around the corner. And summer means that suddenly, your kids are going to be tracking a lot more dirt into your nice clean house. 

But you can still keep high-traffic areas—kitchens, living rooms, hallways, and bathrooms—in tip-top shape during all the activity of summer by following a few simple strategies. Here are tips to keep your high-traffic areas clean straight from the DC carpet cleaning professionals at Zerorez® DC.

Six Carpet Cleaning Secrets to DC Carpet Cleaning

1. Cut down on disinfection services: install doormats instead

Doormats are not only useful to home decor. Doormats can help collect dirt and debris at the thresholds of your home before they make it inside. They can be your first line of defense against DC rug cleaning specialists, acting as do-it-yourself disinfection services. 

For maximum dirt-trapping power, place a doormat on both sides of each door that leads outside the home—whether that’s the front door, the garage door, or the back door—and choose ones made of an abrasive material like sisal, coir, or nylon. This will help to effectively scrape dirt off the shoes of kids and visitors alike.

2. Avoid cleaning and disinfecting nightmares: make a no shoes in the house a rule

Even if you have a doormat (and even if you can train your kids to use it), the soles of shoes are still going to track dirt into your home. 

Shoes don’t just bring in dirt, though—they’re also transporters of such bacteria as E. coli and C. diff, which they pick up on bathroom floors outside the home. This is especially problematic if you have an infant or toddler who is spending a lot of time on the floor, since that is where the bacteria transfers – talk about a cleaning and disinfecting nightmare!

Avoid the excess dirt and the excess germs: by making a no shoes in the house rule. Have your family take their shoes off as soon as they come in the door, and swap them for a dedicated pair of house shoes. You can use a low-profile shoe rack to keep things organized by the door. And if you have small children who spend a lot of time on the floor, call in a professional disinfection service to clean and sanitize your carpets and area rugs on a regular basis (like your DC rug cleaning professionals at Zerorez® DC).

3. Another disinfection service avoidance hack: don’t eat in the living room

Although summertime is generally a more relaxed time of the year, resist the urge to eat on the couch. How do professionals clean upholstery in their own homes? They resist spills and other damaging substances in the first place. 

Cups, plates, and bowls tend to tip over when placed on cushions, and without a solid surface to rest your dishes and utensils on, the odds of spilling something on your carpet or area rug goes up exponentially, which means your professional couch cleaning cost increases. This is especially true of kids, who aren’t always as careful with your furniture as you’d like them to be.

Instead, make a habit of eating outside in the summer. Not only does this mean you and your family can enjoy the nice weather and spend more time outdoors, it also means that any crumbs that fall or spills that occur will happen far away from your couch or carpet. More time outdoors also helps keep sunscreen off the upholstery—another do it yourself upholstery cleaning avoidance hack for summer.

One quick tip for how to get rid of carpet odors from spilled food, pets, or messy kids: sprinkle baking soda over the carpet in the evening. Allow it to sit for the night, then vacuum it up in the morning! 

This helps absorb the smell, but doesn’t remove the source—animal urine, crumbs, or spilled liquids—still lingering in the carpet. For those, you’ll want to use a carpet stains home remedy like white vinegar or club soda (check out our other blogs on this topic), or – if the stain lingers after using this carpet stains home remedy or other do it yourself upholstery cleaning tricks – give us a call to help you.

4. Move fast when disaster strikes

Also, how do professionals clean upholstery and carpets in their own homes? They treat stains quickly. It’s also their own carpet stains home remedy.  When it comes to cleaning up spills before they stain, time is the enemy. You can save on your own professional couch cleaning cost as well as upholstery cleaning costs by doing the same.

Whether the surface in question is the couch or the carpet, or even paint spills outside from a summer home renovation project, the secret to getting carpet stains out is to not let that spill dry. The faster you can act, the more effective your treatment will be. 

So make sure to keep do it yourself upholstery cleaning essentials like baking soda and white vinegar in your arsenal. And make sure that you’re familiar with how to remove carpet stains ahead of time, so you’re poised to act and so you’ll prevent permanent damage. Getting carpet stains out is much easier when you know what to do ahead of time.

Remember: one of the best do it yourself methods for getting carpet stains out is the “blot and spray” carpet stains home remedy method: Use a clean white cloth to blot (not rub!) away as much of the spill as you can. Then spray the area with carpet cleaner or diluted white vinegar, and continue to blot. Repeat this process until you aren’t picking up any more material with your cloth. Then you can use another clean, damp cloth to “rinse” the cleaner or vinegar out of your carpet. You can follow this up with an overnight application of baking soda to absorb odors and other remnants of the spill, too.

And if you’ve done all you can toward getting carpet stains out and are having no luck, you can also check out Zerorez® DC’s Facebook page for Zerorez® DC carpet cleaning specials.

5. Vacuum often—and not just the floor

While you should definitely vacuum your floors, carpets, and area rugs at least once a week as part of your own cleaning and disinfecting routine, it’s also worth spending some time and effort vacuuming with a hose attachment in other areas such as beneath kitchen cabinets, under the couch, and both sides of your couch cushions. 

These areas tend to collect tiny bits of everyday debris, and over time these particles of dirt and crumbs can discolor your tile, carpet, or upholstery, or even lead to odors or insect infestations. 

So make vacuuming in these odd spaces a regular part of your do it yourself upholstery cleaning routine to keep this flotsam from building up and creating stains and smells.

6. Call in the professionals when necessary

For older, set-in stains, don’t be afraid to call your DC carpet cleaning professionals at Zerorez® DC for help! Substances like oil, wine, sunscreen, and cat pee are notoriously difficult to eliminate with DIY methods. Plus, some materials like leather and natural fibers need special care in order to clean them properly without further damaging the material.

In many cases, investing in professional carpet and upholstery cleaning can actually save you money by restoring your badly-stained carpet, rug, or couch to a like-new condition.

If you’re looking for more tips on how professionals clean upholstery, take a look at the Zerorez® Powered Water™ process. Instead of using harsh soaps or chemical detergents, this process uses specialized equipment to emulsify dirt and other stain-causing components in your upholstery, gently but thoroughly removing these contaminants and washing them away.

Similarly, for professionally cleaning carpets–often in the most-trafficked areas in the home and take the most abuse during the summer months–Zerorez® uses a food-grade enzyme to dissolve particles that cause odor and discoloration, then follows up with a Powered Water™ cycle to completely remove them. This physical removal of source particulates is crucial to the process of real sanitization, according to the CDC, and marks the difference between cleaning vs. disinfecting. 

Plus, the Zerorez® method is completely free of the many toxic chemicals common in conventional carpet cleaners, such as diethyl phthalate, butylphenyl methylpropional, and glycol ethers—all linked to reproductive harm—and the persistent water contaminant hexamethylindanopyran. At Zerorez®, We Clean Green™.

Need More Information? 

Contact us to find out about our current Monthly Specials on Residential and Commercial Cleaning Services. Call Zerorez® DC Metro at 703-382-1221 — or book a carpet cleaning appointment online. Does Zerorez® really work? Check out our Zerorez® reviews and you’ll find the answer is a resounding yes!

We invite you to connect with Zerorez® DC on Facebook to find the latest Zerorez® carpet cleaning specials! We can also be found on LinkedIn for business and commercial accounts — and get all our great cleaning tips on our blog, The Residue Chronicles!

Locally owned and operated Zerorez® DC and Fredericksburg – “The Right Way To Clean” in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area, Stafford County (including Fredericksburg, Garrisonville, Berea, and North Stafford), Maryland (including Bladensburg, Oxon Hill, and Marlow Heights) and the Northern Virginia Region (including Annandale, Springfield, Fairfax Station, and Vienna) since 2015.