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.
Optmium household cleaning art, is my jam, it’s totally a special interest of mine. I’ve not got a home to collect all that equipment, I used to run a window cleaning business for a short time, I found inner-peace whilst squeegeeing windows.That is until I let it all go, a ladder that is.. though a window..
To be honest, although I have a home, it can be a struggle to find the space to store my cleaning equipment. This is partly because the house I live in was built in an era when the likes of carpet washers, steam mops, etc, didn't exist.
I'm sorry to read about your ladder mishap and the demise of your window-cleaning business. You have just reminded me of yet another thing I need to add to my never-ending list of household tasks... cleaning my windows (inside and out).
You need a signpost to the equipment that’ll do best..? It fine if you don’t, I just happen to love cleaning windows, provided I have the right gear..
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.
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!
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..
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..