Today I started a belated spring clean of the house. I’d booked a carpet shampooing machine, hired from the local hardware store. I’ve used these machines several times in the past, and it really brings the carpet up nicely. I like to try and do it a couple of times a year, but I think it’s been longer than that.
After breakfast and vacuuming the house thoroughly to remove any loose dust and lint, I picked up the shampooer at 9am. Once at home, I filled the machine with hot water and carpet shampoo, and began the tough work of spraying the carpet and sucking up the water and dirt. If you’ve never done this before, imagine using a vacuum cleaner, but three times as heavy, including the hose and nozzle bits. And you have to scrub it back and forth on the carpet with pressure, and multiple times. It’s serious physical work, hot and exhausting. After an hour or so I was dripping with sweat and ready to quit. Fortunately my place is not large, and that completed the job.
I emptied out and cleaned the shampooing machine for return to the hardware store. The minimum hire is 24 hours, so I could have returned it tomorrow, but didn’t want to have it hanging around, so I took it back to the hardware store at lunch time. The guy there looked at my receipt for the refundable deposit.
He said, “You’re returning it already?”
I said, “Yeah, my place is small. I finished it in a couple of hours.”
He said, “You know you’re supposed to wait until the carpet dries, and then do it again. And then do it a third time, until the water comes off clean, so you know the carpet is clean.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll do that next time.”
He said, “You’re not cleaning a rental before moving out, are you?”
“No, it’s my own place.”
He said, “Oh, well that’s okay then. But next time do it properly.”
Huh. The dozen or so times I’ve hired one of these machines, nobody’s ever told me that before. But honestly, one go over the carpet was exhausting enough. I can barely imagine doing it again in the afternoon, and then again in the evening!
I basically spent the afternoon relaxing my tired muscles. Until heading out for a 2.5k run after my wife got home. And for dinner I made a pasta with broccoli in a tomato sauce.
New content today:
I’ve never bothered cleaning the carpet multiple times in the same day. Once seems to get it clean enough, even where there were obvious stains before I started.