Yes, your carpet gets dirty faster after it’s been cleaned. But why? And does that mean you should wait as long as possible before cleaning it?
It’s funny, if you research this topic on Google, you’ll find page after page of articles claiming it’s a myth carpet gets dirty faster once it’s been cleaned. The only problem is, all those articles were written by carpet cleaners.
You see, they don’t want to admit that carpet does, indeed, get dirty faster once it’s been cleaned. They’ve come up with a million reasons why this can’t be true… but they’re wrong.
These days, most carpet comes from the factory with some sort of protector, whether it’s Scotchgard or a similar product.
Carpet does possess some innate stain resilience, but that stain resilience is greatly enhanced by the factory protector, an invisible coating that helps carpet repel soil and stains.
When you have your carpet cleaned, at least some of the factory protector gets stripped away. Maybe not all of it, but enough to make a difference.
As a result, your carpet will be less resistant to soil and stains. It will remain somewhat resistant, but not as resistant as it was when it was new.
But does that mean you should avoid having your carpet cleaned?
Not necessarily. The biggest enemy to carpet is dry soil, which eats away at your carpet like sandpaper. Unfortunately, regular ol’ vacuum cleaners can’t remove all the dry soil in your carpet because much of it becomes sticky with body oils, food residue and all sorts of other yucky stuff.
Occasional “wet” cleaning (whether it’s steam cleaning or some kind of dry cleaning process–both use water) is necessary to remove sticky dry soil. When you avoid cleaning, you allow dry soil to build up and wreak havoc.
So you have a choice to make. Do you want to preserve the factory stain resilience? Or do you want to remove harmful dry soil?
Thankfully, you can have the best of both worlds. After cleaning, protector can be reapplied to your carpet, helping to preserve the factory stain resilience. So my recommendation is to follow the instructions in your warranty–which probably requires you to have the carpet professionally cleaned at least once per year–and then have protector reapplied.
This fixes both the problem of carpet getting dirty faster once it’s been cleaned AND harmful dry soil buildup.
Of course, there are other factors that can cause rapid resoiling after cleaning, but they are based on lousy techniques perpetrated by the person who did the cleaning. For example, they could leave too much soap or detergent in your carpet. They could leave too much dirt in your carpet. They could chemically burn your carpet with very high or very how pH cleaning agents. But you shouldn’t have to worry about these things if you hire a reputable company.
If you live in or around Indianapolis, I can care for your carpet, reapply protector and avoid poor cleaning techniques that lead to rapid resoiling. If you’re interested, call or text me, Ross, at 317-370-9075. Prefer email? Click here to send a message.
