Here is a quick update for all our customers for carpet cleaning in Macon and Rug cleaning in Macon and Warner Robins, Ga. We have been hard at work on a new rug cleaning studio. Thanks to your patronage and referrals, we have run out of room in our current location. We have recently been blessed to acquire another, much larger, space for oriental rug cleaning. In our current studio, once we get 3 or 4 rugs cleaned and ready for drying….we run out of space on the floor to clean rugs. It is the next day before we can move forward in the rug cleaning process. In this new facility, we will be able to continue working with rugs all day because we will have 400 square feet dedicated as a specialty drying room. We will have an additional 2,000 square feet for rug dusting, washing, detailing and grooming. We are so excited to have this opportunity to better serve our rug cleaning clients.  Here is a picture during the construction process.  The room on the right will be our state of the art rug drying room.  The room on the left will be offices.  We will still maintain our current drop off and pick up locations around middle Ga for your convenience.  And for your FURTHER convenience…..we are still including pick up and delivery to your home in our pricing structure!

One of the big concerns we hear about with oriental rugs are bugs and what to do about them.  There are several steps you can take to keep pests from digesting your oriental rugs.

VACUUM REGULARLY

Moths and carpet beetles prefer quiet and undisturbed places. You will generally find them doing their dirty work under the corner of your sofa, behind a drape, along the cracks in the planks of your wood floor, or on the back side of a rug hanging up still on your wall.

You should give the rug a good once over on the front every few weeks, and flip over the corners to see if there is anything to be wary of.  Moth larvae look like sticky lint and do their damage when they emerge from those cocoons HUNGRY.

Vacuum the back of the rug thoroughly also.  I like to run my vacuum upholstery tool over the back of the corners of my rugs, just to be safe, and once a quarter I completely vacuum the back side of my rugs to make enough chaos to have bugs look for another place to feast.

For rugs hanging on the walls, at least once a quarter take them down to vacuum. If they are delicate you can use the upholstery attachment instead of a beater bar or suction type vacuum. Because of this needed maintenance for hanging textiles, we suggest using velcro to hang it.  This makes it easy to take down and put back up.

WASH REGULARLY

Area rugs under normal to heavy use should be washed annually.

This means sending them out to be washed in a rug cleaning plant, and NOT having them just surface cleaned in your home. (BIG difference, especially if you are trying to avoid bugs.)

If you have moderate traffic on your rugs, and you vacuum at least every other week, then the wash frequency can be extended to every 18-24 months. But, if you wait longer than 2 years, you are asking for trouble. Not only from the abrasive grit that gets lodged into the base of the rug fibers (which is what causes areas to wear down faster), but also in regards to insect activity that can quickly cause visible damage to your rug.

Washing the rug will help dislodge bug activity and physically remove them and their problem-causing ways.

FOR STORAGE – ALWAYS WASH BEFORE WRAPPING UP

Rug cleaners rarely offer “mothproofing” these days because those solutions are pesticides that kill things, and for something you may have your kids or pets rolling around on, that’s just not safe.

Even the odorless insect repellent solutions that professional cleaners have available and are not poisons still have some irritation risks. (Always read the MSDS to evaluate whether you want to use a particular product that requires leaving residue behind.)

But if a textile is going into storage for years, it is best to make sure you are not going to open up the package and find a rug disaster, so using a repellent is wise unless you are putting the piece in a cedar chest, or using other items that tend to discourage moths.

When I put something into storage, I don’t want to worry about it, so I use a repellent.

The most important step though is the wash and making sure you are not wrapping the rug up with any unwanted pest guests.

If your rug does have a visible insect problem right now, while it is out to be professionally washed you will need to bring in a professional cleaner to tackle your wall-to-wall carpet or your hard floors, wherever the problem rugs were, so that you can remove the rest of the problem.

Hot water extraction (“steam cleaning”) can take care of the problem in your carpeting – something the EPA lays out guidelines on for how often you should have this done as posted on the IICRC website.

Macon rug cleaning clients tell us that it often doesn’t seem to matter what you do, if the dog is going to pee on the floor then he is going to choose a favorite area rug. Why?  I don’t know.  I once heard it explained by an instructor in this regard:   Wool rugs are made from sheep hair so the dog walks by the rug and says “Hey, what’s that sheep doing in my house?”  and proceeds to mark his territory!

There are other possibilities too. Maybe the pet is getting old and can’t hold it or even control it as much.  Maybe the pet is overactive or gets too excited and you get what I call “Happy Tinkle.”  Maybe he’s being territorial with other animals (or sheep) in the home.  Or maybe he or she is just mad because you brought someone or something else into “their” home without consulting them.

Regardless of why it happens, you need to know what to do to remedy the situation before it ruins your rug.  We have published numerous brochures and articles and blog posts to help you with spot cleaning.  Today, I want to show you the ultimate way to get the urine odor out of your rug.

Simply bring it in to the Middle Ga Rug Spa and let us take care of it for you!  We have the expertise and experience to handle your rug appropriately without causing more harm to your precious area rug.  This picture above is a rug bathing in our urine decontamination pit.  You can see the urine deposits being loosened from the fibers for removal.  We can’t tell you all our secrets but if you want to enjoy a clean, fresh smelling area rug once again, then we have the right treatment for you!  Call us at 478-972-6583 to have your rug picked.  Or you can save 20% by bringing it to us.  We are located in Forsyth, GA about 15 minutes above Macon, GA.

What’s the number 1 reason people have carpet cleaning done?  Because they have company coming.  The Holidays are here and this means we all have family and friends coming to visit.  Fresh, clean carpet always brightens up the room for a more beautiful atmosphere.  So, if you want a good impression with the in-laws, be sure to have your carpets professionally cleaned for the holidays.

This year, we have a new rug duster that get’s more out of rugs than ever before.  I’ll post more on this incredible tool later!  Also, look for more posts on our carpet protector that comes with a year warranty.  This way, you can enjoy clean carpets before and after the Holidays!

Last week, a well known furniture store brought us a brand new microfiber sofa cushion cover that was stained with ink.  Apparently, a customer shopping for furniture had sat on the sofa with an ink pen in pocket.  The ink pen busted and leaked ink all over this brand new sofa cushion.  They tried to remove it but it seemed ruined forever.

They brought it over to us to see if we could remove the ink stain and save the cushion cover.  We video taped this incredible process that permanently removed this ink stain and eliminated its chance of reappearing later.  Watch

For the month of September, The Middle GA Rug Spa is giving Carpet Cure $25 gift cards to give to their Macon carpet cleaning customers getting their carpet or tile cleaned this month.  The gift cards can be used toward any rug cleaning purchase this month.  You must ask for the gift card when you make your appointment.  call 478-405-9138

Cory McCook

Most of the time, whenever odor removal is needed on an area rug, it’s due to pet accidents.  I could write all day on the complexity of urine/rug relationships – but I won’t.  Instead, I’ll show you pictures and share with you how our odor removal processes go way beyond what most folks realize.  But beforehand, please note that each rug is different in its construction and stability.  Urine removal is affected by the pet’s diet, previous attempts at removal and the length of time the urine has been deposited in the rug.  We must first thoroughly inspect the rugs condition, understand its construction and test the rug dye stability before moving forward with any cleaning and odor removal processes.  Note:  Some rugs can’t be cleaned the way this one was.

This rug was cleaned in our rug shop and the client’s primary concern was odor from where her pet had “accidents.”  I’m going to show you step by step what was done to successfully remove the urine deposits and thoroughly deodorize the rug.

After our pre-inspection and testing, the rug was dusted and then fully submersed in an acid bath to neutralize the urine deposits.  You can see this reaction at the back of the wash pit in the picture above.

Once the rug is neutralized, we begin rinsing and draining the rug and “bathtub.”  A squeegee is used to assist in moving the dirty water off the rug.

For severe odor problems, we use a subsurface extraction tool to further flush the rug.  We apply deodorizing agents appropriate for the rug being cleaned, and then use this tool to pull the agents through the rug backing.  This is done to further ensure that we have reached all contaminated layers of the rug.  In the picture above, you can see how we are spraying fresh water around the subsurface extraction tool.  The vacuum hose on that tool is attached to a powerful vacuum that is pulling the fresh water from around the tool’s perimeter, down through the rug and back up the middle of the tool to the suction hose.  The surface of the tool is clear glass so that we can tell when we have flushed out all the urine, dirt, and cleaning agents.

Now, we can focus more on cleaning that dirt in the rug fibers.  This planetary machine is safe and gentle on all our rugs and allows us to thoroughly clean all sides of the rug fiber.  We use it to brush in our cleaning solution and further lubricate the soil for extraction.

Next, the rug is rinsed again and extracted from the front and the back.  At this point we would also apply fabric softener if needed and fabric protector if purchased.

Once the water is extracted from the rug, we use a grooming tool to lay the pile and prepare the rug for drying.  In the picture above-right, we are using a carding brush in addition to the grooming tool.  This is needed on some finer fabrics that may have experienced pile reversal within the field of the rug.

Once we have finished the rug, it is set up for drying.  Some rugs are hung on a drying rack and some are floated on the floor.  This one is being dried on the floor.  Notice you can see air escaping from the middle of the fringe at the bottom of the rug.  Once the rug is dry, we will inspect it closely to ensure that it is thoroughly clean.  We will either crawl the rug or hang it up so we can smell the rug and make sure it is odor free.  If we detect odor, we will post treat it with friendly enzymes or place it back in the pit to be washed again.

Although this is the most thorough method to clean rugs, some rugs can’t be cleaned this way.  Other certified cleaning techniques that we use are dry cleaning, encapsulation and bonnet cleaning.  However, if your rug has odor problems, bathing the rug in our wash pit is the only way to guarantee removal of the odor.

Finally, we have the site up and running!  It looks good!  Thank you, Jeremy, for your compliment.  John put it together.  Excellent job!

I hope to post here every week or so about our company, rug care tips, specials, etc. The site has two names.  One is www.middlegarugspa.com  the other is www.maconrugcleaning.com.  The reason for this is that Macon is where most of our clients are so we wanted to make it easier for Macon area residents searching for local professional rug cleaning to locate us.  The rug cleaning studio is in Forsyth, GA so I think we are conveniently located for all of middle GA.

Have a great week everyone

Cory