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Washing Rugs
Washing Rugs
Faced with the problem of a number of rugs that needed cleaning, I used my Yankee Ingenuity to come up with a thrifty solution. Rugs need to be cleaned. I don't want to spend a lot of money at the drycleaners.
First off, I'm fortunate that I'm not dealing with wall-to-wall carpeting. I actually loathe that sort of thing. I suppose it's a deep-seated suspicion that no matter what, you just aren't getting the dust out of them.
When I vacuum, I flip my rugs over and vacuum under them, as well as their backsides. Not every time, but perhaps every three months or so. And there is always a lot of dust and stuff underneath to be cleaned up.
So with wall-to-wall carpeting, I'm thinking that the same dust and dirt and such is present. But getting trapped in there. Pad, or no pad, I'm not going to be able to get the carpeting clean. I see a lot of advertisements for vacuum cleaners that can get that dirt out. I see grocery stores renting steam cleaners and things, and even occasionally get a phone call from a service that wants to come to my house and clean my carpets for me. But not for me.
Instead I've got a nice collection of rugs. At least one was swooped upon at the side of the road, a good fake oriental type, slightly chewed by a dog on one corner. Another came out of a barn sale, for all of one dollar, filthy dirty. Most are from tag sales, or hand-me-downs from someone else who was changing over to wall-to-wall carpeting and knew that I liked rugs. One of them, though, is a very nice woven rug from Afghanistan, with big cabbage roses in the pattern; that one is in my room, where it won't get walked on a lot and certainly not by muddy boots just out of the gardens.
But when I do have to clean the rugs, I'm off & running for the hose.
My strategy is to lay the rug that needs to be cleaned on the picnic table. Dish soap, scrub brush, and the hose. Its helpful to pick a nice hot day, as part of the plan is that the rug needs to be washed and to be dried quickly so it does not mildew.
I start with running the dry brush over the dry rug. This pulls off any large amounts of hair and dust. In the case of today's cleaning, I'm getting mounds of cat hair from the pets of a former friend who had stayed with me for a few months. I pull those clumps off the brush, collecting them to one side. I could easily fill a measuring cup with this stuff. Yuck. I'm allergic to cats, so making sure that the rug is very clean is important before bringing it back into the house.
Once the visible clumps of hair are removed, its time for water and a thorough front and back rinse. This particular rug has a rubberized backing, making it almost as bad as a carpet in terms of holding dust and dirt into itself. The brush I'm using is a 10 inch tool with a 3 foot handle that screws onto the end of the hose. As I scrub, water flows through a central section, keeping it wet at all times.
Spraying a line of dishwashing soap across the rug, I start scrubbing, mixing the soap into the material fibers. One section at a time, I wash and rinse. All done, then I take the brush off the hose and concentrate on removing the soap with a consistent line of spray, directed by my thumb.
I'm getting soaked in the process, my shoes squelching in the grass and mud. I'm wearing my green raincoat/adventure jacket and my waterproof hat, but my legs are sopping and the bottom hem of the sundress I'm wearing is wet, too.
If the rug did not have a rubber backing, I would first wash the back, then the front, then rinse each side twice with the last rinse on the front. After finishing this large rug, I do exactly that with a small area rug that is washable on both sides.
The rugs are left to drip and drain after their scrubbing. I will check on that progress in a few hours and turn them. Today is not a bright hot sunny day, so it may take quite a while for the extra water to drain off, and I will hope that it will not start pouring again so they will indeed drain fully. With a good hot day, I will lay crates and 2x4 boards out on the driveway, to take advantage of the heat from the stones and give the rugs just that extra bit of drying before rolling them up and bringing them into the house.
Failing to have the weather improve in the next day or two, I'll take the heavy rugs, as dry as I can get them, and put them up in the attic for a while, rolling them up for easy transport but unrolling them once I get them there. The goal is to have the rugs very dry so they don't mildew.
This is a cleaning tactic that I have used successfully for years. It meets the goal of making things clean while avoiding the unnecessary expenditure of funds. And its kind of fun, especially if my daughter is here; add in a second brush and it's a situation just ripe to deteriorate into a water fight.
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