Can you use a carpet cleaner on an area rug? Eek! Over a hardwood floor? *cringe*
I thought I would give it a go!
First, I did a quick swipe on the edge to make sure the water wasn’t going to drench the hardwood flooring underneath, wreaking all sorts of havoc. Images of swollen and buckled flooring having to be replaced swirling in my head. I kid, it was fine. The carpet cleaner I use has a handle to control how much water is sprayed. At this point it was a little trial and error.
Since this post, I have shampooed my area rugs three times and can confidently mark this an ingenious success! My cleaner has two settings, wash and rinse. I fill ‘er up and set it on wash. Then two passes, one forward and one backward, over the whole surface. Next, flip the switch to rinse and two passes again. Keep an eye on your water level, you may need to refill.
Here’s the super gross part — if you’ve never done this before, even if you vacuum on an almost daily basis, your water will be FILTHY. Yeah, that’s disgusting. An extra tip, dump your carpet cleaner reservoirs, mop buckets, etc. down the toilet and clean the toilets last.
The carpet cleaner I used is linked HERE, affiliate link. If you can wait, I’m pretty sure I got a great deal on this on Black Friday!