In Which I Whine About My Carpet

I have a love/hate relationship with my carpet. Actually it’s more of a like ok/hate relationship. I nearly went berzerk a few years ago and ripped it out. But then I got a new vacuum cleaner and didn’t hate it so much. Now I’m back to the point where I might just rip it out again. If I wasn’t fairly certain that there was nasty, painted on, marked on “construction concrete” underneath, I would. And if I had a few thousand bucks just laying around, I’d re-floor it. But since that is not a likely scenario, I’ll have to figure something else out.

Here are a few things I have learned about flooring.

1. I never ever again want to have wall-to-wall carpet in my living areas. Bedrooms, ok. Living areas? No way.

2. Dogs track in more stuff than you ever thought possible.

3. Children cause more random spots and stains than you can keep up with. A spill is actually just a good excuse to clean the floor. Because otherwise, it’s not even worth it.

4. The best color for your floor is the color of dirt.

Oddly enough, the carpet in Caedmon’s room is probably the worst. Before he was born, that room was the “spare room” – you know, where a lot of junk was collected. During some crazy phase, Argus and Criket would pee all throughout the house. They did that twice in this room, and the stains never completely came up and they keep rearing their ugly heads now and then. We also had that carpet professionally cleaned and those guys were unable to get them up. I’ve done better with them myself.

Also, there are random dark spots on Caedmon’s carpet. They come up fairly easily, but I don’t know where they are coming from. The only thing he’s allowed to have in his room is water (and that’s been cut back lately), so unless he’s licking the carpet, they’re being made by some magic stain fairies. Fairies that are no longer welcome. I regularly take my carpet-stain-remover-stuff in there and clean the spot, just to have more reappear.

And then there’s the glider. It was free. It has served us well. But not only is it pretty uncomfortable and squeaks uncontrollably, it has stained the carpet big time. I have been unable to get these stains up and am really frustrated with the whole thing. What in the world do you use to get grease stains out of carpet?

From my previous experience, I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in carpet cleaners when it comes to stains. So here’s my next move. Unless anyone can offer me any better suggestions, I’m going to find someone with a shop vac I can borrow, and try a mixture of dish soap and water. I’ll use the soapy water, vacuum that up, then “rinse” with clean water and vacuum that up. I don’t figure it will hurt that carpet any more and it might help.

And then? I’m going to find an inexpensive rug to put in the boy’s room. One that I can use to catch most of the stains, roll it up and take it outside to clean it if necessary, and when it gets too gross, just throw it away.

Now, that’s about #79 on my to-do list, so don’t expect a report back on that next week. It may be like his wall art – that I’m actually getting pretty close to finishing. For now, I’ll just keep dealing with the stains.