-- queried The Wugster as she maneuvered around the folding bicycle propped against the oven. It was indeed a most apt question.
In all the years we've lived here, we've shampooed the carpets precisely once, when we hired a carpet cleaning machine for a weekend from a machinery hire shop in the High Road. But that closed down and went away years ago, and any carpet cleaning we've done since has been
ad hoc responses to various spillages rather than a dedicated programme of care and upkeep. The result, inevitably, was rather grubbified carpets, spotted with evidence of past exudations of one kind or another. We had begun to talk of replacing the carpets, at least in the downstairs dining and living area, or laying down carpet tiles to conceal the worst bits.
But late last year, we began seeing adverts for
Rug Doctor carpet cleaning machines which could be hired for a weekend, and thought we should give one a go. The Morrisons supermarket in Wood Green seemed the closest; then we saw that they could also be hired from
B & Q in Tottenham Hale, a fifteen minute walk away. So we blocked out a suitable weekend, thoroughly vacuumed the downstairs carpet, moved quantities of clutter either upstairs or into the kitchen (mostly quantities of Wugster clutter, apart from the folding bicycles and my weeping fig tree), and set to on Saturday morning. Set to so thoroughly, in fact, that while I did the dining area of the downstairs, The Wugster had to return to B & Q to purchase more carpet detergent and stain remover.
Several passes later, the carpet no longer looked quite so grubby -- not back to its original oatmeal colour, but certainly not something to still feel embarrassed about whenever we have visitors. Not back to its original colour, that is, except for the more stubborn areas which had to be treated with the stain remover, the side-effect of which was to remove almost all the accumulated grunge and leave patches which are now lighter than the rest of the carpet, thus paradoxically drawing attention to themselves. Perhaps we should shampoo the whole thing in another weekend or so, and see what effect that has.
We had originally intended to do only the downstairs carpet, but ended up doing the whole house (apart from our respective studies, in which stuff was piled for the duration). Getting into the spring cleaning spirit, The Wugster also deployed some Mr Muscle spray on the oven -- meaning, with all these chemicals poisoning the air, we had to open the doors and windows wide to allow ventilating beezes to blow through on a weekend which turned wet and cold, with the daytime temperature falling back into single figures and The Wugster thus required to apply several layers of shirtage and woollies.
By Sunday evening, the carpets were more or less dried out, and stuff could start being returned to its usual places -- the bicycles to behind the chairs, the weeping fig tree to the front corner. At the time of writing, quantities of Wugster clutter still remain in her study, which should be a good oportunity to sort it out and throw lots of it away rather than simply stuffing it all back from whence it came. Or I'll keep sneaking in and seizing discreet handfuls of stuff to throw away if she doesn't....
