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This is article is kindly written Phil Mathot from Mighty Clean Carpet
Pets are our friends, and sharing your home is often part of the companionship we have with our pets. However, like anything, this can have it's challenges. For many people, it's not a particularly pleasant topic to talk about, but today we are going to discuss pet urine, how it affects carpet, and how your professional carpet cleaner A-Team Carpet Cleaning Newcastle, can help. So what really is urine? Urine is biological waste that includes urochrome pigment, lipids, uric acid and creatine. Generally it is excreted in a slightly acid state, but as bacteria develop, urine begins to become alkaline, off gassing ammoniated odours. Pet urine in carpet presents three challenges. 1) Odour 2) Contamination (health hazard) 3) Visual urine stain Pet behaviour changes depending on breed and sex amongst other things. Some animals will mark perimeters, others will return to the same spots. Multiple surfaces are often affected by pet urine, and it's extremely important to understand this point. A carpet is made up of the face pile (what we see and can touch), a backing and the underlay. All of these surface can be affected by pet urine, but that's not the end of it. Urine can penetrate into the flooring substrate, and often we find that skirting boards and walls, and other soft furnishings such as curtains can be affected. So what can A-Team Carpet Cleaning Newcastle do for pet urine in carpets? Firstly, we will determine what your concern is. For visual stains, we need to determine what type of fibre your carpet is made from. This often governs how successful the urine stain removal will be. As an example, woollen carpets are much more sensitive to treatment than nylon, and nylon more so than polypropylene. The fibre type you have, the length of time the stain has been present and previous treatment attempts all can affect the outcome of a urine stain treatment. Typically speaking we can successfully treat 50-60% of visual urine stains, using a specialised thermal transfer process and mild oxidising agents. Odour and contamination from pet urine presents their own challenges. If you are only concerned about the bacterial action in the face pile of the carpet, we can treat this with an anti-microbial treatment, clean your carpets, and then re-apply an anti-microbial effectively sanitising the face pile of bacteria. If pet urine odour is your concern, the challenge is determining the extent of surfaces affected. A-Team Carpet Cleaning technicians carry black light urine detecting equipment, which can indicate where urine is located. The extent of affected surfaces will then govern what the best course of action will be. Sometimes pet urine odour removal is a process of elimination. Although the simple answer may seem like carpet replacement, and sometimes this is part of the solution, without determining whether the urine has penetrated into the subfloor, or exists on other surfaces such as wall, skirting boards, curtains etc, the problem will continue to linger (pardon the pun). What ever your challenge may be with pet urine and carpets, A-Team Carpet Cleaning Newcastle are here to assist you. A note from Jamie @ A-Team Carpet Cleaning Newcastle If you have any friends or family who are looking for professional carpet cleaning in Penrith or carpet cleaning in the western suburbs of Sydney please pass on Phil's website www.mightyclean.com.au he is a highly trained carpet cleaning professional who always looks after his customers which is why we are glad to have him on board.
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Tips for Stain Removal on Carpet
So you’ve spilled something and stained your carpet. Don’t worry! Thousands of your fellow Newcastle residents do the same every year, and yes you guessed it, that includes me. What matters most is! What you do next? Or in some cases, What is it you’ve done already? Here are the tips for dealing with spillages. WARNINGS: If you have wool carpet or if you’re unsure if its wool, don’t place any chemicals on the area (this is very very important). Wool is a natural fibre and reacts to anything that is high pH (alkaline) or low pH (acid). And when I say reacts, it generally means it will permanently bleach the carpet. In fact as a rule it is better if you don’t place any chemicals on the spill no matter what carpet you have and no matter what the chemical's packaging says). The reason is simply that you can permanently set the stain or limit the potential for a professional carpet cleaner to remove it, if you can’t. Also be careful with rugs as they may not be colourfast and spot cleaning can remove or spread colour. Step 1: IF THE SPILL IS LIQUID: Immediately blot & absorb the liquid with a towel or tea towel (preferably clean and preferably white if possible) until no more moisture can be absorbed. Immediate action is necessary to avoid the liquid penetrating beneath the carpet to the underlay. Do not rub or scrub the stain as this can distort the carpet pile and leave a fuzzy section in your carpet (Now go to step 3) IF THE SPILL IS NOT LIQUID: Scrape up the spill with a spatula or a spoon and remove any excess. Work back into the middle of the stain to avoid spreading it. (Now go to step 2) Step 2: Using a clean white towel or tea towel blot up any of the excess material. Do not rub or scrub the stain as this can distort the carpet pile and leave a fuzzy section in your carpet. Step 3: Using a spray bottle of clean water apply a very small amount directly to the stained area (avoid this step if it is an oil based stain). This will hopefully suspend the particles allowing easier removal. Using a clean white towel, blot up any excess moisture and hopefully more of the stain. Work back into the middle of the stain to avoid spreading and as mentioned already Do not rub or scrub the stain (It is also important in this step to avoid over-wetting as it will only soak through the carpet and wet the underlay, so go easy). If the stain has disappeared then job well done. If the stain remains you will need to call a professional IICRC accredited Carpet Cleaner to remove the stain and get your carpets freshened up at the same time. Check out Carpet Cleaning packages for Newcastle residents. |
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