Frugal Luxuries: Cleaning Carpets

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Want to know what hubby's and my gift to each other was this holiday? A carpet cleaner. (and a Wii) Sexy, I know. Our house came fully carpeted except for the kitchen and the bathrooms. (the dining room carpet was the first to go, btw - I can't handle carpeted dining rooms) But as much as I dislike having carpet in any room besides a bedroom, our budget just doesn't allow for replacing all (or even most of) of the carpets so I've restrained myself from ripping up carpet in the other rooms. Mostly. You'd think that with such a great old house there'd be great old wood flooring under there, but no such luck. If there ever was great flooring it was torn out years ago.

Most of my reasoning behind having solid surface instead of carpet is that they're easier to clean, and with a toddler and two cats (one with bladder issues) easy to clean is a priority. But as much as I crunched numbers and argued with myself, I just can't justify spending that much money just so I don't have to scrub as much.

So - to be frugal and feel luxurious: Instead of re-flooring the whole house we got a carpet cleaner with scrub brushes. And a scrubby upholstery attachment. I put it together (Max helped) and got it running on Saturday afternoon - and man is that thing awesome! I did the back room (where kitty has had the most incidents and where we have the exit to the deck) with just the basic cleaning solution that came with the cleaner and it made a HUGE difference. The stains are gone, the carpet is so much brighter (I actually like the shade of blue now, go figure) and the room smells much better. Yay! I purchased some pet-stain-specific solution as well, and if the basic solution is any indication then the pet-specific one will be fantastic.

It has some reviews that mention leaking, so I got it straight from Hoover rather than through Amazon like I normally would so if I have issues I can contact them directly but so far so good. The best part - between purchasing it on cyber Monday and coupon codes I got it 33.5% off and free shipping! Woo!