I was using one of those metal lint brushes on a low pile synthetic rug in my living room, mostly for the lols. I use it on the couch and I thought I’d give it a go.
It horrified me how much dust it kicked up in addition the to fibers it removed. We use a robot vacuum almost daily, and vacuum the rug separately with a “real” vacuum as well. I don’t expect the vacuum to get all the hair that gets tangled I guess, but the dust was just 🤮
Do people still have to take their rugs out and beat them? Haven’t we progressed from that?
I have a small steam cleaner for spot cleaning large fabric things that can’t get washed. Maybe that is something I should be using on the whole rug, on occasion?
I don’t have any carpet flooring in my house because I hate the idea of it being a massive burden to change a fabric floor cover, but I realize I could probably do better on keeping the rugs clean. I don’t think it warrants tossing just because it’s dusty.
Can someone share some wisdom with me? Replies sharing how little cleaning you do are not helpful, but go off I guess. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to not want dust accumulating in my rugs.
Edited to highlight that I am specifically asking about rugs, I don’t have carpets.
I also hate carpet because of how dirty it gets and how impossible it is to clean properly and how much it would cost to replace regularly. I am a hardwood / vinyl plank kind of person with rugs everywhere. My smaller rugs, specifically the runner ones that are like 2 ft wide and 8 ft long-ish I fold in half hot dog style and then roll them up and throw in the laundry machine. I run the sanitize cycle with enough soap for a heavily dirty item, if you’re using your standard high efficiency soap in a standard high efficiency front loading washer like me I use something close to 5 tablespoons split between two washes, 2 on pre-wash 3 on the main, I also add full scoops of borax and oxygen bleach to each wash cycle. Then extra rinse at the end. The sanitize cycle should have the hottest water with the most intense wash cycle and the most intense spin cycle. For the little runner rugs I do this 3 to 4 times a year.
As for my large rugs, I have tried different carpet cleaning machines over the years but I find that I spend so much time and effort and soap and water trying to clean them and they never feel actually clean. What I ended up trying was I found a laundromat in my city that has the super duper extra huge mega washers. The way people measure washers is weird but the ones I used said they could handle 100 lb worth of clothes. There was one that I liked but they added their own predispensed soap and fabric softener which I don’t like and doesn’t wash out thoroughly enough so I found one that allowed me to bring and use my own soap. These machines cost about $20 per wash but even for my 8-ft by 12 ft rugs they fit. You can then throw them in their huge mungus tumble dryers, though I suggest standing in front of the dryers to keep the doors from popping open unless they have a solid lock on the dryer door. I would dry on low just so you don’t accidentally melt anything. Because of the expense and the hassle I probably only do this one to two times a year and have my robot vacuum/ mop go around every day to make it last as long as possible. Word of caution, I only use quite low pile rugs because I had a very long pile of rug that I took to the laundromat once and it ended up disintegrating and leaving a big old mess behind. I ruined to the rug and put the laundry machine out of commission for the day so it could be deep cleaned. I felt very bad about it so I warned you in advance if you have very long pile rugs I’m so sorry your best bet is probably to take them outside and beat them. When I say long I mean like these were 3 in Long fibers, very very fluffy.