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Carpets (semi-permanent wall-to-wall) are disgusting. Not only do they harbor and re-emit every foul odor ever present in the house, they also collect up to a 1/4 inch thick layer of skin cells, dust and parasitic bugs and their corpses.
Plushly upholstered furniture is no better. If you must have floofy furniture that looks like it was designed to prevent head injuries and goes all the way to the floor so that you must move it to sweep under it, at least replace it every few years.
I don't get the fascination with wall-to-wall carpet. Hardwood floors are best or tile if you must. Then throw down area rugs such as oriental carpets or equivalent.
That and repainting will go a long way towards deodorizing a living space.
HEy - go post this in my "Do people really keep the carpeting when they buy a used house" thread please. I am being chastized for being afraid of cooties.
If you must have floofy furniture that looks like it was designed to prevent head injuries and goes all the way to the floor so that you must move it to sweep under it, at least replace it every few years.
What a waste of perfectly good furniture and materials!!!
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I don't get the fascination with wall-to-wall carpet.
That's OK. I don't get the obsession with obliterating (non-existent) dirt and (non-existent) germs.
What a waste of perfectly good furniture and materials!!!
Well I wouldn't be so wasteful. I buy (and make) furniture based on my needs and wants and thus don't have the equivalent of a grody sponge to sit on everyday.
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Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81
That's OK. I don't get the obsession with obliterating (non-existent) dirt and (non-existent) germs.
If you spent several years working for apartment complexes removing carpet and reinstalling carpet like I have, you might have a different opinion on the existence of dirt under those things.
Oh, and there is also the fact that I was diagnosed with asthma after I started that job, and it 'magically went away' after I found a different job just three years later.
If wall-to-wall carpet works for you, great! Lots of people rarely wash their underwear and see no problem with that either.
I have redone a lot of homes and apartments and I have seen what well maintained carpets and furniture look like and what filth is like.
Most folks do not live with filthy carpets. Yes, sand can work its way down through even the backing on carpet. But if people regularly vac and clean their carpets, they aren't living in filth.
Most of us who have purchased expensive carpet are certainly going to go to the effort of taking care of it properly.
I prefer hardwood floors but that is not always practical. I have laid hardwood floors in 3 houses and it is not only expensive, it is very disruptive.
I also like tile if a home is located in the right part of the country for that to be practical.
Cleanliness is a matter of conscientiousness. To me, it is much easier to maintain hard surfaces. With carpet, it takes more effort, b/c I am going to be extremely conscientious about keeping my carpet clean, from no shoes in the house to regular vacuuming and cleaning. No reason to make blanket statements that all people who have carpeting are living in filth.
As for smokers, washing down surfaces, painting rooms, and cleaning carpets will usually take care of the problem. Old carpet is never going to smell "fresh," smokers or not. Carpet should be replaced based on use, and for most areas of the house, it needs to be replaced much more often than people typically replace it . . . every 5 years is about right for heavily used rooms, when there are kids, pets . . . high quality carpet wh/ is cleaned regularly may last longer, of course.
I have seen carpet looking ragged after only 3 years if there are kids, dogs, cats, and lots of activity in a home.
Not stepping on anyone's feet but ozone attaches a third molecule of oxygen to everything it makes contact with and chemically oxidizes it. Ozone works much better when done correctly like heating up the space to as warm as you can get it before using the machine (cutting off power to everything during use though). Heat increases the oxidization process.
Just a snippet:
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Ozone decomposes rapidly when dissolved in water. Dissolved ozone decomposes into hydroxyl radicals, one of the strongest oxidants known to science. They are extremely useful in many applications, such as decontamination, disinfection, decolorization, deodorization, and chemical synthesis.
The redox potential is formally known as the Oxidation Reduction Potential, and often referred to as ORP. A higher positive redox potential means that the agent is a stronger oxidant. As shown in the following table, the redox potential of ozone is extremely high. Ozone is a much stronger oxidant than chlorine.
I bought a house in North Carolina that had been home to chain smokers for 40 years. The walls and ceiling were yellow with smoke residue.
I first washed the walls and ceilings with TSP. I then washed them again with Odo-Ban. I also sprayed the carpets and window coverings with the Odo-Ban and allowed everything to dry. I had a few rooms with ugly dated wallpaper and a limited budget, so after the washings, I painted these wall with normal interior latex paint. No Killz or any other treatments.
The odors did not return unlike a dresser I bought that required multiple Odo-Ban treatments over a couple years before becoming odor free.
Trisodium phosphate. It's a cleaning agent & degreaser, among other things. You can find it in most hardware stores.
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