Carpets feel great, keep your feet nice and warm on those cold winter nights and absorb sound, making the house quieter and more peaceful for everybody. They also look great and, unless someone spills something on them, they don’t need more than the occasional vacuuming and maybe a shampoo every few years. Right? Not exactly. While carpeting does feel great, absorb sound and make your house quieter and more comfortable the notion that it doesn’t need more than the occasional pass with the vacuum isn’t really accurate. You see, the same things that make carpeting feel great to walk on also make it the ideal place for microbes to set up house. As such the longer you go without calling for professional carpet cleaning services the more potentially dangerous your beautiful carpet becomes.
Carpet Cleaning and Your Health
It’s probably been awhile since you thought about the state of your carpets. That’s only natural. Everyone sort of takes their carpeting for granted simply because the change from one day to the next is imperceptible. If no one has dropped a glass of wine on them or slogged through with tar-covered boots then the carpeting probably looks pretty good. But looks can be deceiving.
Carpets Attract Everything
The thing about carpets is that they’re the largest filter in your house. Everything floating in the air eventually winds up on the carpet. Any loose dirt on the bottom of your shoes eventually winds up in the carpet. And any microbes you or the pets or the guests bring in from outside eventually find their way into the carpet where they feel nice and snug and warm and safe. When that happens you need a truck mounted steam cleaning machine like the ones we use at Steve’s to get right down into the fibers and dig those microbes out. Just running a vacuum over the carpeting every few weeks isn’t going to intimidate the viruses and bacteria that often live there such as:
- Staphylococcus - This is one tough, ill-tempered microbe. It’s so tough that it attaches itself to the bottom of your shoes while you’re walking around outside and somehow survives the pounding it takes. Once you enter the house and your shoes contact the carpeting the Staphylococcus hops off like a hobo off a freight train and burrows down into the carpet fibers. One thing that makes this virus so scary today is that it has developed a high degree of antibiotic resistance. So anyone walking across the carpet in bare feet thinking how great it feels is at risk of picking it up if the carpet has not been professionally cleaned recently.
- Micrococcus - Like Staphylococcus, Micrococcus usually enters the home on the soles of shoes. It is responsible for all kinds of skin conditions, pulmonary infections and can cause meningitis. Pulmonary infections can be extremely serious and even result in death. Micrococcus is in no hurry and can survive and replicate in your carpet for months before it sees an opportunity and springs into action. Professional carpet cleaning services can eliminate this threat.
- Norovirus - Oftentimes when people get diarrhea or experience an upset stomach they attribute it to food they ate that didn’t agree with them. Or they tell friends they’re suffering from a “stomach flu”. But while there are certainly times when too much spicy food can wreak havoc with your insides the fact is that diarrhea or even vomiting might not be food related at all. It might well be norovirus from your carpeting. Playing on or even just touching a dirty carpet and then touching your hands to your mouth is enough to transmit the norovirus from the carpet to your GI tract. A thorough carpet cleaning will purge norovirus from your rugs.
- Campylobacter - Campylobacter is an extremely aggressive virus. While it is most commonly found in undercooked food like chicken it can also enter the home on the soles of shoes if someone has stepped in animal feces. Touching a soiled part of the carpet with your hands and then touching your mouth introduces the virus to your system. Symptoms of campylobacter infection are chronic diarrhea (as often as once an hour all day and night), extremely high temperatures, painful cramping, dehydration and rapid weight loss. If untreated death can occur within a week or two. Again, a thorough carpet cleaning with our truck mounted steam cleaning machine will eliminate this horrendous virus from your carpeting.
- Mold spores - Mold is a quiet health problem many people don’t realize is lurking in their basement, in their air ducts and yes, in their carpeting. There are several species of mold whose spores can cause allergic reactions, asthma attacks, respiratory infections and even infection of the lining of the heart. Mold can hide in carpet fibers and create all kinds of health problems that people think are being caused by the weather, their diet, pollen or a dozen other things. Having professional carpet cleaning services steam clean your carpets will eliminate any mold that may have taken up residence there.
The Bottom Line
There are any number of potential health hazards lurking in your carpets and none so dangerous as the many opportunistic microbes that are brought into the house on the bottom of shoes. At Steve’s we have more than 42 years of experience ridding carpets of dangerous bacteria, viruses, mold spores and more. Give us a call to find out more.