Carpets brighten and beautify a room. Unfortunately, the one thing LIVING rooms are known for is people actually using them – which means constantly walking on your beautiful carpet. If the carpet is placed in a room, or an area with high activity, the carpet can age faster than normal if care is not taken. Knowing how to protect your carpet in high traffic areas will help your carpet last longer and with the condition staying good too. Thankfully there are a few things you can do yourself to protect your carpet.
Preventing early depreciation starts even before you place the carpet in the high traffic spot. That means as much as you’ll want to beautify the place, you have to focus on more than just picking bright colors. You want to find something with long lasting material. That is usually what will determine how long the carpet will last – all other maintenance procedures are secondary. Memphis Clean says some of your best options are wool and nylon, as they can withstand intense traffic better.
Alright this seems to contradict the idea expressed in the previous point – try to minimize cleaning. However, note that the idea expressed here isn’t the same as using chemicals or scrub brushes. What you want is to use the vacuum cleaner to take out dirt from carpet – so the dirt doesn’t have time to go deeply into the carpet. It’s like sweeping off dirt before it gets the chance to seat. You’re not scrubbing, you’re not steam cleaning or applying any moisture, you’re just “sucking out dirt” before they have a chance to call your carpet their home.
High traffic areas are prone to accidental spills. Your trouble begins when you let the spills sit. Note that bacteria only starts growing when moisture sits for more than 24 hours. So be on top of spills whenever they occur. Basically you want to act as quickly as you can. If possible, have a professional grade spot or stain remover on hand that will either create a hostile environment for microorganisms to thrive (without damaging your carpet) or minimize the effects from accidental spills. Baking Soda and vinegar are also effective in removing stains.
Bottom line? The most essential part on how to protect carpet in high traffic areas begin with the quality of the rug’s material. Once you decide, you’ll need regular maintenance on your carpet – keeping a watchful eye on rogue spills, and minimizing the amount of dirt that actually gets on the carpet. With these down pat, your rug should last you a much longer time.
