Carpet cleaning that works for you and the environment

I don't know about everyone else, but I like to thoroughly clean my house before the holidays.  This includes cleaning the carpets. That's oil from a rolling chair.  Lovely, isn't it?

I'm not sure what this was but . . . ew.

One more lovely shot of my dirty carpet.

The first thing I did was sprinkle my carpet with baking soda and let it sit all night. My early risers track it around the house in the morning, but it's just baking soda, so it doesn't matter. Vacuum the entire floor. I started taking pictures after I'd vacuumed.

Fill your carpet cleaner with hot water and about 2 Tablespoons of vinegar. Go over your entire floor. This next picture is after the vinegar step.  It looks a little better, but you can still see spots. For the record, I said this works, not that it's fast.

The oil stripe is a lot lighter after the vinegar.

The next step is to use liquid castile soap and water in the carpet cleaner. I use about the same proportions as the vinegar and water. You can buy castile soap at Walgreens or on Amazon. It is a natural soap and comes in several different scents. I like peppermint or orange. The next few pictures are after the castile soap

So much better.

This is the one that surprised me the most.  No more oil stripe! I actually did this about a year ago and it is still gone.

The last step is to go over the entire carpet with just hot water. Keep going until the water is fairly clear when you dump it out. This ensures you got all the dirt and your carpet will not dry crunchy.

Be sure to test an inconspicuous area with this combination before you do your entire floor.  Vinegar can lighten colors.  My carpet is pretty light so it doesn't matter.  (Note to self: Don't ever get light carpet again. It shows everything!)

Bonus shot of my book.  Oh, pretty!

This was not the most exciting of blogs so I will leave you with cute kitten pictures. I took these while they were still foster kittens so they have paper collars that they hated. Come to think of it, they don't like the regular collars either.