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What should you do if you want to clean your furniture yourself?
Important things to know and tips.
The furniture is in every home, it is an integral part of our daily life and a necessary element of comfort. But in the process of use, for different reasons, stains from food, spilled liquids, children's pranks or pets can appear on the upholstery. In such cases, of course, you want to get rid of these stains as soon as possible and return your favorite couch its original appearance. After all, the dirt on the furniture is always in plain sight and spoils the overall picture of the interior. Thus, we face the question: how to effectively clean the furniture at home from stains, from dirt, from streaks, from odor, from cat or child urine or even from blood?
On the Internet, as well as in advertisements, you can find many methods and miracle remedies that offer to easily get rid of this or that stain (or even get rid of the smell of cat urine). Such stain removers are often called "professional", but this is far from true. If the product is concentrated, it does not mean that it is professional! It is unlikely that you can buy a real professional product for upholstery cleaning in an ordinary store. Such products can only be found at specialized suppliers, and they must be used by trained cleaning professionals in accordance with the cleaning technology and in combination with professional equipment.
Separate attention deserves "recipes" that tell how to clean the couch with vinegar, baking soda, alcohol and other means. If you decide to clean upholstered furniture with your own hands, these methods should be treated with caution. Read this entry to the end, and you will find out why.
Often the owners of furniture, having bought a remedy from advertising, rush to get rid of stains on the couch, and boldly pour and rub the magic solution on the upholstery. Some prefer to use advice from the Internet and, having read an online publication, treat pet urine stains with vinegar or citric acid.
Unfortunately, such actions in the vast majority of cases lead only to the aggravation of the situation.
The photo shows real-life examples of the effects of self-cleaning by customers:
Stains after self-cleaning the couch with a household cleaner.
Attempting to remove the stains on their own resulted in loss of color.
Self-cleaning couch with baking soda, after vacuuming the baking soda was eaten into the fabric and remained.
Most often unsuccessful self-cleaning happens with white couches. After all, to clean a white or light-colored couch at home without streaks is quite difficult. After all, if you apply even a completely transparent liquid or cleaning foam to a light-colored furniture upholstery, then after it dries, it is likely to remain stains against the background of common impurities in the fibers of the material. And if the cleaning product has an aggressive environment, then divorces on the couch can be formed due to dissolved and spread on the fabric dye. To correct such damage is much more difficult than just cleaning upholstered furniture from stains and dirt.
Sometimes it is still possible to "successfully" remove the stain by the above methods, but note that in any case after such a procedure in the upholstery remains the cleaning agent that you used. And the stains that were on the surface of the furniture are simply rubbed into the filler. Stain removers, as a rule, have an aggressive alkaline environment, and remaining in the fabric, constantly affecting it, the fibers can be destroyed, and the existing stains are fixed for a long time. Detergents, after drying, leave a sticky residue in the fibers of the fabric, on which dust accumulates in a short time and dark mottled areas or stains are formed.
How to clean upholstered furniture with your own hands without the risk of damaging the upholstery? If a liquid (even urine, blood) or food got on the couch, a fresh stain should be blotted as soon as possible and wiped with an absorbent cloth or a clean white cloth. This simple action will remove most of the substance from the cloth and filler, making the stain, if it remains, much less noticeable and less likely to cause streaks.
If you have a spotter machine, it is recommended that you rinse the upholstery several times with cold, clean water and dry it. In this way, you will be able to remove stains and other localized fresh defects from the furniture upholstery yourself, but unfortunately, this method will not help to remove stale dry stains, get rid of general dirt, greasy darkened areas and unpleasant odors.
A good recommendation: do not try to remove odors from upholstered furniture with household stain removers and detergents! They will not help you in any way, especially when it comes to pet urine odor. In such cases, the odorous substances will only be absorbed deeper, the odor will be even more intensified, and it will be much more difficult to get rid of it. Often the same unpleasant effect has the same unpleasant effect inexpensive odor remedies from the pet store. In the case of unsuccessful application of methods with acetic acid and ammonia, often to the scents of animal marks can be added to the acrid odor of ammonia. After all, in order to remove the smell of urine, it is necessary to completely eliminate its source, that is, to dissolve the odor with a special agent, then completely remove the solution, and leave the furniture clean.
An important difference between professional upholstery cleaning and self cleaning of upholstery is that all the solutions used are neutralized and completely removed from the furniture together with the dirt. For this purpose we use special professional equipment. With their help, the entire upholstery is repeatedly washed with a powerful jet of various cleaning solutions. In addition, for each type of stain is used the appropriate stain remover from among expensive specialized concentrates. There is no miracle universal remedy that will take out any stain from any material. Up to 10 solutions can be used to clean one sofa. Also, if you ordered upholsrety cleaning in another company, and the "master" came to you and cleaned the sofa for 30 minutes with one means, the quality of this procedure is highly doubtful. Most likely, such a quick cleaning did not neutralize and completely remove the chemical (conditioning of the fabric). To avoid mishaps, you should choose a cleaning company that is confident in the professionalism and experience of its specialists, do not entrust your furniture to dubious masters.
Whether you clean your furniture yourself or call professionals is up to you. We recommend that if you are not 100% sure that you can get rid of dirt on your own, do not experiment! The damage from unsuccessful actions can significantly exceed the cost of professional upholstery cleaning. At the same time, upholstery cleaning can bring interior items back to life, and its price is many times, and sometimes dozens of times lower than the cost of new furniture.
CLEAN SOFA LLC specializes in upholstery and mattresses cleaning. We have a lot of experience and deal with a huge number of different types of dirt. But the most difficult situations occurred when the client tried to clean upholstered furniture on their own. We are always happy to help you get rid of any kind of dirt. But, unfortunately, if the upholstery fabric is damaged by any chemical agents or specific long-lasting stains, it is not always possible to restore the damaged areas with upholstery cleaning. Take care of your furniture, contact professionals in time.
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