If your carpets are dirty,stained, and / or has odors embedded in the fibers then it is time to get your carpets professionally cleaned by a certified carpet technician.  It is very important that you select a certified technician to clean your carpets from a reputable company. I will show you how can do this quickly and do it for free.

Watch out for low low prices scams

There are a lot of ads out there claiming that a company can do your carpets for an unbelievable low price and no matter how tempting these offers are , I would steer very clear from them. A lot of the times these companies are not reputable and are doing bait and switch scams.  They will saying anything for them to come to your house and then upsell you a package that was much much more then you had expected. Since they are already not reputable you have to be careful of what sort of cleaning they give you. They will probably not give you all that you  have paid to get done and also an untrained carpet  technician can damage your carpets or rugs.

What you should be looking for

Now that we know somethings we should avoid lets find out what to look for when hiring a company to steam clean your rugs.

The first thing we should look up is , what kind of references does a company have. Are they licensed ? Do they have any reviews on sites such as yelp, kudzu, or google local ?   The best way to find out if a company you are dealing with is reputable is to find out what other customers are saying about them. People can lie about their quality of work but they cannot prevent customers from telling the truth through honest feedback and reviews.  Do a search on review sites and asking the company for credentials is a good step to take.

Another thing we should inquire about is if  the carpet cleaning companies technicians are certified and trained by the industry standards such as http://www.iicrc.org/.  Finding this out can save you a lot of money and headaches. IICRC is the leading authority for carpet and upholstery cleaning. They train and certify companies and technicians. Look for their seal on the companies webpage and ask if they are iicrc certified.   A certified technician will know exactly what chemicals are safe for your carpet , how to use the equipment properly, how to remove certain stains and what is possible to remove and what is not. This will prevent from your carpet or upholstery from being damaged and insure that your carpets are properly cleaned.

What should it cost ?

There is no right answer on this, for every company charges a different price and it also depends on what exactly is being cleaned. What kind of stains and what level of cleaning that you need.  But, again watch out for low low prices. They usually just run water and suck it back up and leave all the stains in your carpet.
Here is a good average price range that I will list for you.

• $.25 -.35 per square foot to clean carpet.
• $.12- .15 per square foot to apply stain protector.  (OPTIONAL)
• $1.50 -2.20 per step.
• $5.00 trip charge.

• $45.00 minimum.

  so a normal carpet cleaning should cost around .25 cents a square foot. That is for everything.  Now if you want a stain protector put on such as scotch guard that would cost you an additional .12 cents a square foot.  For steps on a stair case it usually cost about 1.50 per step.

  Now these are ballpark figures but it gives you a good indication on what you should expect to pay and at what price is fair. You can always get a discount or might be quoted a higher price depending on your region , etc etc.

  A good carpet cleaning business should be able to always give you a decent quote on the phone.  They should be  upfront and know exactly how much it costs. Now this quote will be dependent on the information you gave them being accurate. So always be honest and upfront about your room sizes and situation. They can also come and measure your rooms for you if you need that done and give you a quote in person.