Keeping the Carpet Looking Fresh

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I thought after we got our puppy Lilly last summer, my carpet would never look new again. House breaking left my carpet looking gross. (Here's a puppy tip, buy baby gates and keep the dog on hardwood and tiles surfaces, it took us a month and many accidents on the carpet to figure this out.) Even after several bottles of Shot, and using a friend's Bissell carpet steamer I still had dark spots on the carpet. They didn't smell as far as I could tell but it just looked dirty.

Months passed with gross (to me) looking carpet and I knew a $100 carpet cleaning was coming sooner than I would like to pay for. I read a tip to spray any dark spots with a mist bottle of water and slowly vacuum over until the spot disappears. Sure enough this took any mystery spots right out! No joke, the carpet looked almost as good as if Stanley Steamer had come through. We've lived in our house a little over a year now, so we are probably overdue for a true carpet cleaning but this works great for the times in between.

Another little trick to freshen up the carpet is to sprinkle baking soda and allow to sit for thirty minutes and then vacuum up the baking soda. This helps to absorbs any odors in the carpet.