Do you use natural (chemical free) cleaning products, and are you willing to spend more in order to use them? Do they work as well as chemical products? I do prefer natural cleaning products, however, I have not found a natural product that works as well as Resolve carpet cleaner for pet messes. Has anybody found a good carpet cleaning product?
I recently tried Nature's Miracle Stain and Odor remover; it does wonders for removing odor but it did a terrible job at removing a stain. In fact, it didn't even slightly remove it. I, too, prefer Resolve, especially for pet messes. I haven't found anything that works better, natural or not. On a side note, although it can be a little pricy, Nature's Miracle does an amazing job at cleaning athletic gear! My husband and I are avid runners and our clothes get pretty icky (to put it mildly). The Texas heat and long distance running do not always combine well. I accidentally poured Nature's Miracle into the washing machine once instead of the sports soap we were trying, and let me tell you, it did a great job removing all the icky perspiration smell from our clothes. I also have a 13 year old son who plays football and brings home his athletic clothes from school every Friday. I only wash them in Nature's Miracle now!
I used to sell carpet cleaners, and the best thing that I have found for pets odors is to use a solution of hot water and a little chlorine bleach. This will work unless you have dark colored carpets. In that case, use white vinegar. It will not work quite as well as the bleach for killing the odor-causing bacteria; but it will do a much better job that any commercial product, and won't gum up your carpet with soap. Using a soapy carpet cleaner is like washing your clothes and not rinsing them. All of that icky residue is left in the carpet and attracts dirt. That is why you can clean a stain out of the carpet and it comes back again. I have a carpet cleaner, and anytime the dog has an accident, I just use hot water, pour it over the urine stain, and then suction it up with the carpet cleaner. If you can get it right away, the bacteria will not have time to breed in there and make the carpet smell bad.
I agree that Nature's Miracle works well for the odors but does not clean up the stain. It is interesting to know that it works well in the washing machine, though. I will give that a try!
I'm willing to spend more on natural toxic free products, however I have found many such products not to clean as well. It seems that if I don't get some bleach to clean with, things don't feel very clean. So, I don' buy the natural cleaning products very often unless I can find one that works very well.
I use a white vinegar and water solution to clean carpet stains. It works very well. Vinegar is a great natural cleaner.
I am going to try vinegar and water today. I have to large circular stains on my living room carpet from a mess my cat made the other day. I immediately cleaned it up with Nature's Miracle (as that's all I had at the time and thought I'd try my luck again). Following the directions exactly only resulted in spreading the stain and creating a very obvious spot on the carpet.
Yes, for spot cleaning I use vinegar for coffee and soap and water for most other things and it works great. I don't see the need to buy chemicals to clean the carpet.
I had a carpet when I moved in and I had a hard time cleaning it, so I actually convinced my landlord to replace it for hardwood floors!! However, when I had one the best solution I found to deodorize it was mixing water, vinegar and a bit of alcohol! It does a good job at removing any sort of smell!
