Published on 12, July, 2020
As a result of having some work done in my house last month, which required items several items of furniture to be moved, I decided it was time my carpets had a long-overdue and much-needed deep clean with a carpet washer. This is something I used to do a few times a year, and hope to get back into the habit of.
I opted to start with my son's bedroom carpet, well aware that it would likely require repeated deep cleaning. The last time it was done must have been a good 10 years ago, and there's a heck of a lot of deeply embedded dirt that has built up since then.
When using a carpet washer, one ideally wants the dirty water collected to end up looking reasonably clear. However, I think it could be a while before I begin to feel the end goal is in sight, as despite several washes, the dirty water being collected resembles the colour of mud. Admittedly, a slighter lighter shade than when I started cleaning the carpet a couple of weeks ago. I'm hoping that once I've got my son's bedroom carpet as clean as I can get it, regular vacuuming (by him) and less intensive carpet washing (by me) will be enough to prevent it from getting into such a filthy state again.
I have a list of outstanding tasks that I want and need to do around my house and garden, so if cleaning the carpets can be crossed off the list, it will give me hope that maybe, just maybe, I can muster enough physical energy to tackle the rest. When I moved into my house 22 years ago, I took pride in it. However, repeated bouts of depression and physical health issues resulted in it getting neglected and looking rather unloved. I am now on a mission to see if I can rectify that.
DeSpereaux - After reading about your recommended tools of the trade, and in particular your opinion regarding window-cleaning soap, I'm inclined to agree.
Before I invested in my combination steam mop, I could never see the point of spending money on expensive brand-name cleaning products, especially when a supermarket own-brand or budget brand did the job just as well, or better.
With my steam mop, I like the fact that all I'm using is tap water with nothing added to it. Previously, I'd experimented with various window-cleaning soaps (including sprays), but the one thing I always kept coming back to was dish-washing soap. I found it seemed to be the only thing that didn't result in leaving unwanted streaks and smears that I then found hard to remove.
C'est la vie !
Ben
Sorry! I am so sorry!
Yes, it probably will rain. In my experience, this will probably be right after you have just finished cleaning your windows.
Um... gulp! Do I dare confess to the occasions when I've called the council to come and take a look at my gutters, as a torrential downpour has resulted in me thinking I have a crack in the guttering? Do I dare confess that each time this has happened, I've been informed that there were no cracks to be seen, just a build-up of leaves, twigs, and other debris, which has kindly been removed?
Oh, the shame I feel... NOT!
Just because it’s bigger doesn’t make it better..!
Smug Ben
At least vow that you’ll wipe the sills too..
I don’t know which emoji you can use to indicate petulance.. but that one..
I don’t think bravery can reanimate the dead, Ben..
No
Courage mon brave.
I’m wounded..! You did this..~~>
OK DS, I'll give 'em a rub with a damp cloth.
Prepare yourself for complete state of mindfulness, allow the your focus on perfection to pervade your nervous system, become one.. with the squeegee..
And the business plan I did was a work of art, a living breathing flexible mega-plan, with a full break of operations,finances,marketing,competition,market insights, projection for 5 years, expansion protocols, communication and networking database, human capital, legal.. 30-odd active pages procedure and fail safe..
I've just read this thread for the first time..... and now wish I hadn't. Thanks to you lot, I shall now be spending time tomorrow cleaning my windows...... they are filthy!
I hope it rains.
The ladder-window situation was because a customer was trying to get me to do a risky manoeuvre to clean a difficult window, again for £2, and the social chaos made me take my mind off of the ladder-lock (that holds the two-tiers together) and the bloody thing fell in half straight through the window (which I’d just cleaned). So I engaged wooden-face mode, handled the social, handled the hazard, fixed the window; and the whole debacle ravaged 2 months of business building.. ending my entrepreneurial days..
At the end of the day the customers aren’t satisfied until they’ve shorted a tradesman, but the result of that was it took too long build a safety net, and the customers were always holding out the clean for 6 months. So most my regulars weren’t regular, it was hard to build trust with new customers, and the marketing was totally resource-draining and arduous as I did it face-to-face and on foot. So ultimately they lost a reliable and constant service and I lost a nice-little business..
I used to clean for £2 per window and £4 per metre of guttering and square metre of fascia’s, I put that price on my flyers. So people knew what expect without harassing me. Sometimes you get a guy complain about £2 for a small window, so then I’d point to his French windows, then he’d laugh or pipe-down..
People would complain about gutter prices, until they realised what was going on up there after 5 year, and a smile grew across their face. I’d be recoupling gutters and scraping 2mm of algae off of them, I’d be pushing a fixing sagging gutting, because I couldn’t stand the sight of it. But I’d never hold out on a price until I saw what the job was, I never readjusted the price, the fixed price was a risk for me too and I think even the hardliners respected that..