Carpet cleaners

[Rumpel]

We have a vax - it's pants. Should I hire an industrial one from homebase or get down on hands and knees with a scrubbing brush?

Also which carpet cleaning solution should I use. DH is taking kids away for 2 nights and carpets were cream/beige and now a mish mash of food, cat hair, pens etc etc.

We hired one this weekend from Focus and did sitting room, study and 2 bedrooms (rest of house has hard floors) with one bottle of the fluid we bought.

The carpets have come up pristine (judging by the colour of the water in the resevoir thingy - they were rather disgusting) so it was well worth it imo (cost £40 in total)

It was quite labour intensive for dh!

thanks anyone else? Do the industrial ones have attachments for stairs?