carpet cleaning confusion

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I need to clean our living room carpet. There are random spills and marks which I cannot even identify (my toddler gets the blame, even though I know some of it was DH!)

I seem to have 3 options. Buy a carpet cleaner (£200+ to get a decent one, according to Mumsnet), hire a carpet cleaner (about £70, but I am not sure of the quality - it's really hard to tell) or get someone in to do it (£100 or thereabouts for the area I need done, good testimonials, but I don't know anyone personally who has had it done, so a little risk).

My question: Have you used a hired cleaner or a company to do this for you, and if so would you recommend it? Or should I fork out for a carpet cleaner of my own (don't really want to, as I can't see me using this more than once every few years )

I hired a rug doctor for a weekend for about £40 including solution (still got quite a bit left too) and it worked really well. Didn't take long to dry out. I was told by a letting agent the carpets needed cleaning and when id done it they thought it had been professionally cleaned. I got it from Morrisons but you can get them in lots of places.

Hi all I recently moved to the blackheath area and I wanted to know if your know of any good cleaning services agents that i can use to clean my home please.