It’s estimated that around 25% of adults suffer from allergies, and one of the biggest culprits for making symptoms worse is an unclean carpet. Fortunately, there are things you can do to keep allergens at bay in your home, including getting to know the best steam carpet cleaning London business around.
1. Why an unclean carpet can make you unwell
The thick dense fabrics in a carpet easily trap dirt and particles, which get trodden down deeper into the carpet over time, making them increasingly hard to remove. Even if you vacuum your carpets regularly, not all of this ingrained dirt will be eliminated.
There’s all sorts of stuff that can end up in a carpet. As well as visible dirt such as mud or food crumbs, invisible organisms can invade your carpets – and it’s these you need to worry about. Dust mites, in particular, feed off the dirt that can end up in a carpet, so are especially happy to call a carpet their home.
Germs and bacteria from the air or from unclean footwear can also thrive in a carpet, as can pollen and pet dander.
If your carpets get wet and haven’t been dried properly, mould and mildew spores could start to grow, and as this usually happens deep down in the carpet by the underlay, you may not even notice there’s a problem at first.
All of these substances can cause you a wide range of health problems, especially if you’re an allergy sufferer.
Itchy skin, a runny nose, sneezing, a sore throat and breathing problems are just some of the uncomfortable symptoms you might experience if you have contact with allergens festering in an unclean carpet.
2. Preventing allergens
You could be forgiven for thinking that if you experience an allergy-related condition like asthma or hay fever, you won’t be able to have carpets fitted in your home. The good news is that this isn’t the case. You can still enjoy the benefits of owning carpets, without your health suffering.
The key thing is to prevent allergens from building up in a carpet over time. Strategies you should take include not wearing outside footwear in the house, vacuuming your carpets regularly using a HEPA, high-filtration machine, using an air purifier that’s allergy-rated and frequently brushing pets to prevent loose fur from ending up in a carpet.
If you notice any stains in a carpet, deal with these immediately, because bacteria could start to feed off the stains, not only causing odours in the carpet, but putting your health at risk. If you use water to remove stains in a carpet, or a carpet gets wet for any reason, make sure you properly dry it and ventilate the room. This can help to reduce harmful mould and mildew from growing in the carpet.
All carpet materials, natural and synthetic, are susceptible to allergens and irritants accumulating over time, but if you’re thinking of getting a new carpet, and you are plagued by allergens, opt for a VOC (Volatile Organic Compound), short strand carpet such as nylon rather than a long pile carpet made from wool, for example.
3. Steam cleaning
Even if you regularly vacuum your carpets, the only really effective way to prevent allergens from becoming a problem is by getting carpets professionally cleaned, on average once per year, or maybe more often if there’s a lot of allergens around. Don’t forget, allergens can still be present in a carpet all year round, not just in the typical pollen/allergy season, so consider getting your carpets cleaned throughout the year.
There are different options available for professionally cleaning a carpet, but steam cleaning is regarded as the go-to method for removing common household allergens. In fact, Consumer Reports carried out experiments to see which cleaning method worked best for removing carpet-dwelling allergens such as pollen, dust mites and pet dander. It found that steam cleaning was effective at destroying these allergens, and achieved better results compared to other methods such as dry cleaning.
4. Why steam cleaning can prevent allergies
Steam cleaning is a method that professionals and the best carpet cleaners in London use, because it produces impressive cleaning results, quickly. The reason that it can also effectively kill carpet allergens is because it cleans using steam, which is injected into the carpet at a high pressure. This means that the steam can easily work its way down into all areas of the carpet, accessing allergens and irritants right at the bottom of the carpet pile.
Moreover, because the steam is heated to a high temperature, bacteria, germs, dust mites and other harmful organisms will be easily destroyed, killing off the substances in a carpet that are responsible for making you feel unwell.
Another positive benefit of using the steam cleaning method is that it can successfully deep clean a carpet and remove allergens without needing any chemicals. This is really important if you suffer from allergies or have sensitive skin, because chemical residues left in a carpet can also cause you health problems.
5. Can you steam clean a carpet yourself?
If you’re considering hiring a machine to steam clean your carpets yourself, a word of warning.
Cleaning a carpet properly is a skilled task that requires knowledge of different carpet materials. If you hire a steam cleaner yourself, you could put your carpets at risk of damage if you don’t use the machine correctly, or if you don’t understand the particular cleaning needs of your carpets.
Crucially, hired machines are not in the same league as those used by the best steam carpet cleaning London businesses. Professionals use machines which are much more powerful at deep cleaning, and will have the ability to extract many more allergens from all areas of the carpet, compared to cleaning yourself.
Additionally, the best carpet cleaners in London use the latest, most sophisticated steam cleaners that are designed to operate using very low moisture levels, so the carpet dries really rapidly. You might not get the most up-to-date models or most water-efficient when you hire a machine, which could leave your carpets wetter for longer after the cleaning process, encouraging unhealthy mould and mildew to develop.
At Carpet Bright UK, we offer the best steam carpet cleaning London services you could wish for, so if your carpets need deep cleaning, to enhance their appearance and for allergy prevention, get in touch.
