Anyone used a professional carpet cleaning service?

[Penguin13]

Our carpets are to put it mildly looking a bit grubby. The previous owners of our house put light coloured flat pile carpets everywhere and they show up every single mark. With a cat and 16 mo in the house there are a fair few actual stains to add to the general wear and tear. We don't really see the point of replacing the carpets until DD is significantly older but the carpets never ever look remotely clean even when freshly hoovered. It is so bad now that I am too embarrassed to invite anyone round.

I am considering hiring a company to clean our carpets but curious to know what your experiences have been. Was it worth the money? If you are in Bucks/berks and have a recommendation even better! Would rather a proper company come round than hiring a rug doctor machine or similar. I appreciate that carpets are unlikely to be perfect even after a pro clean but would happily shell out for even a 60% improvement. I think I would go for hot water extraction but any advice on other methods very welcome!

I use one every 6 months or so. I'm a childminder so the carpets get trashed with lots of kids through the house.

It is brilliant, I get them done the Friday before I go on holiday - the kids love it as it means soft play for tea - and the carpets are lovely and the house feels all fresh and nice.

The guy I use is very good, gets most marks out and even the high traffic areas are brightened.

I've had my carpets cleaned
Professionally and they came up beautifully . I've also used a rug doctor machine with good results. The only draw back is that the carpets seem to get dirty much quicker once they've been cleaned, not sure why, maybe the scotch guard stuff gets washed off.

We have our carpets professionally cleaned every year. We have thick, cream carpets all the way through the house. They go over the carpets with a commercial grade vacuum, then go over with a carpet rake to lift the pile back up and then use a huge hot spray-extraction machine to wash all the dirt out. It does make a huge difference, although if the carpet was already heavilly stained, don't expect miracles. I can't recommend anyone unfortunately, we're too far away.

Yep, and he protects them too which really works. Any accidents downstairs have cleaned up perfectly whereas upstairs there's stains.

I was impressed with what the guy got out as well, crayon, chocolate and mystery food all cleaned up.

Coincidently, I've just vaxed my carpet - horrified at how much sludge I poured out when I emptied it ! Not as good as the professionals but looks much cleaner.

Wow thanks for all the swift responses! I think we will go for it. Stain protection is definitely a good call too! 16mo went through a really sicky stage for about a month at 10 months and not once did she manage to aim at a wipe clean area!

I am tempted by a proper vax for regular maintenance Doin. We have a mini Bissell which was working overtime on the sicky month and is OK but requires a fair amount of elbow grease and takes ages to cover a small area.

I borrowed the vax from a friend, it's really easy to use and certainly got loads of dirt out .

It has removed a stain that I've been unable to shift scrubbing at it by hand with carpet cleaner.

Do you mind me asking how much I might be looking at for this kind of thing? We have 3 average sized rooms plus some stairs which need doing. I know it depends on a lot of factors but have no idea what would be an average price.

Ooh cross post Molly. Thank you so much for the tips.

I'd love to do your job Molly, must be very satisfying .