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3 Health Risks of Dirty Carpets

Feb 24, 2015

How often do you vacuum your carpets? Do you ever use a professional Maryland carpet cleaning service? If your answer to both is “rarely,” then your carpets could have gotten so dirty, they now pose real health risks. We might be dramatizing this a bit, but the truth is that without regular cleaning your carpet can make you sick. And this is true, especially for sensitive individuals prone to airborne allergens. In case you didn’t know why dirty carpets are bad for your health, here are the top three reasons.

Dirty carpets may cause respiratory problems

If you don’t vacuum your carpets frequently, they will start accumulating dust and dirt between their fibers. Basically, your carpets will get packed with pet hair and dander, food crumbs, dust and your own dead skin sells. All of these are excellent sources of food for dust mites, microscopic organisms that live inside carpets. Dust mites don’t bite humans, but their feces can easily get launched into the air as you walk on the carpet. When inhaled, they may cause a variety of respiratory problems from wheezing and runny nose to full-blown asthma. If you find yourself constantly sneezing, coughing or wiping your nose, it’s possible you have a dust mite allergy. And the shaggier your carpets are, the more allergens get accumulated.

Dirty carpets are full of germs

Do you always take your shoes off before walking on the carpet? Even if you do, your dog definitely doesn’t. We track dirt from the outside all the time, and sometimes pets add to the mess with their accidents. What we are getting at is that carpets can get very germy and filthy rather fast. And while adults know better than putting anything that touches the floor near their face, kids are different. Pay extra attention to maintaining clean carpets if you have a toddler or any other family member who believes in the “5-second rule.”

Dirty carpets may contribute to athlete’s foot

Athlete’s foot is a nasty fungus that attacks human feet. It doesn’t usually appear out of nowhere, and typically you would have to contract it from someone. If someone in your family has athlete’s foot and they walk barefoot on a carpet, everyone else is at high risk of catching it. If you live in an apartment building and have pests like mice or roaches, they could easily track athlete’s foot from someone else’s infected apartment into yours. Regular carpet cleaning can significantly reduce the amount of skin irritants present in your carpet.

Keeping Your Carpet Clean and Healthy

Weekly vacuuming is a good strategy for keeping your carpets clean. However, make sure your vacuum is powerful enough to suck up all that dust and germs. We often don’t realize how much dirt our vacuum leaves on the floor until we get a new one. Also, don’t forget to deep-clean your carpets every once in a while. Depending on the amount of traffic your home gets, aim for somewhere between once a year to once a quarter. You’ll be amazed at how much cleaner you entire home looks and feels after you get your Maryland carpet cleaning company to take care of your carpets.

Give Kent Clean a call or contact us online if it’s time for the annual deep-cleaning!

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