What is one of the most common things that is spilled onto carpet?
Food and drinks. We love to entertain and have friends and family over for social gatherings, and more than likely food and drinks are in the equation. Small little spills here and there that seem harmless, can turn into a bacterial nightmare if it’s not cleaned up properly. Food and drink stains are some of the most stubborn stains to pick up. Not only is it a pain to get the dyes that are left on the carpet fibers, but if these spills are not cleaned up quickly and efficiently, bacteria can gradually start growing and infesting deep into your carpet fibers. In fact, you would be surprised with what could potentially be lurking in your carpets. Eek!
Enzymes are one of the most effective methods used to treat food and drink stains.
Enzymes eliminate odors by causing a biological or chemical reaction. Cleaning with enzymes is also a great treatment for pet and odor stains. Enzymes are a type of protein that are produced by living organisms, but they’re not alive. An enzyme is composed of a chain of amino acids, and it’s the changes to the sequence in the structure, that determines the sole purpose of the enzymes. Some of the two most common enzymes used in cleaning products are amylases and proteases, since they happen to be food-based. They are also the catalysts behind removing and altering the physical properties in many protein related stains and odors.
An independent study of carpets across Britain performed by the cleaning machine manufacturer, Rug Doctor, revealed some horrifying, and nasty results. Many carpets were found to contain dangerously high levels of bacteria including Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter, Norovirus, and Shigella. The carpets were also found to contain dust mites, food debris, pollen, human and pet hair, and traces of skin and human feces. The Norwalk virus, or Norovirus (virus that causes the stomach flu), can survive on an uncleaned carpet for a month or more. Now that’s sure to make your skin crawl. What’s even scarier is you can’t even see the bacteria that may be harboring in the deepest layers of your carpet.
The most surefire way to eradicate any of the lingering disgusting bacteria from food, is to have your carpets professionally cleaned. Hot water extraction a.k.a steam cleaning, is the best proven method for cleaning your carpets, due to the extremely hot temperatures these machines put out. This is the best way to get a thorough deep cleaning, down to the very bottom carpet layers. The difficulty if trying to master this task yourself is reaching the very bottom layers of your carpet. You could roughly only be cleaning the surface stains, while the bacteria is still stuck towards the bottom of the fibers.
