Carpet and Rug Cleaning by the Room, Stairs or Hallway

Booked by the area

Our carpet cleaning service is booked by area, not by the square foot: the stairs, a hallway, and rooms counted from one to five or more. A room is a room, whatever its size, and nothing is paid at booking.

How the areas are counted

Count the bedrooms, living spaces, den or finished basement you want done. A hallway is its own choice, and so is the staircase. A townhome with carpeted stairs and two bedrooms upstairs is the stairs plus two rooms; a single bedroom in a hard-floor condo is one room. List the spaces in the notes, say if one is only partly carpeted, and in an apartment add the unit number, the buzzer and where a van can park. A rug is booked under the room it lies in: give its size, its fiber (wool, synthetic or unknown) and whether it can be lifted, with a photo of it and its label. If it has to go out to a specialist, call or email instead of booking.

Each area carries its own figure; five or more rooms is the largest single choice. Clear pricing here means you see the total before you confirm, not after anyone measures. The cleaning cost calculator shows the figure for your count. Outside the online ZIP list, call or email with the ZIP and the areas. The booking covers homes; commercial carpet cleaning in an office needs a separate scope.

How the carpet cleaning process works

The photo above is from one of our visits: an extraction wand run along the edge of an area rug. The floor under furniture you moved gets cleaned. The team will clean without moving heavy pieces, so the floor under them stays as it was.

Before the team packs up, walk the rooms together while the pile is still damp. Check the stairs and the traffic lanes, where the carpets look darkest, and point out any spot that needs a second pass. Customers’ Google reviews are on our reviews page.

Spots and pet urine

Describe each spot in the notes: what it is, when it happened and what has been tried on it, with photos in the same step. Stain removal on a given spot is not promised before the team sees it, because the carpet type, the age of the mark and earlier products all change what comes out. Pet odor removal works the same way: name the rooms the pet uses and say whether it still lives there.

Urine is the hard case. Once it soaks through the backing into the pad, cleaning the carpet fibers does not reach it, and no carpet cleaning company can promise otherwise, us included. Until the visit, blot a fresh spot, rinse it with cool water, and keep steam cleaning, hot water and a rented carpet cleaner away, since heat can set the smell. Our guides on getting urine smell out and getting vomit out go step by step. Rinse whatever you put down: soap residue left in the pile attracts dirt and grime. When two or three enzyme rounds have not kept the smell away, that is the point for professional cleaning.

Products, dust and humidity

If anyone at home has allergies or asthma, or an allergy to a particular product, say so in the notes. The same goes for an eco-friendly or non-toxic product you would rather have used, or harsh chemicals you want left out; the approach is agreed before the day. Between visits, the usual advice is a vacuum with a HEPA filter or a double-layered bag; the pile collects dust mites and other allergen sources. For indoor air quality, the EPA recommends keeping humidity below 60 percent.

Drying, furniture and preparing the rooms

The team will clean and leave your carpet damp, and no drying time is quoted; it depends on the floor and the room. Fans, the air conditioning or a dehumidifier speed it up. Keep shoes and pets off until the carpets are dry, and put furniture back only once the carpets dry through, so the wet pile is not pressed flat.

Before the visit, pick up shoes, toys, cables and the dog bed, move small furniture out of the booked spaces, and keep pets in a room that is not on the list. There is no need to vacuum first.

How often to book

There is no fixed interval. Even the best carpet darkens first in the traffic lanes: the stairs, the hallway, the path from the door to the sofa; book again when they do. Between professional carpet cleaning visits, vacuum slowly with overlapping passes, out to the edges where pet dander collects, to help a clean carpet stay clean longer. Regular cleaning on our house cleaning visits takes the loose dust; this visit takes what stays in the pile.

How to compare carpet cleaners

Ask every company the same questions. Which method do they use, is it a low moisture one, and what dry time should you plan around? What is counted: rooms, square feet, the stairs, the hallway? If they sell deep carpet cleaning or a pet treatment as a separate line, what does it add? Ad lines such as “carpets look like new”, “advanced equipment” or a promise to leave your carpet looking great are hard to check. A list of areas you can count is not, and the best carpet cleaner for your home is the one whose answers you can hold them to. What we count is on this page.

With other cleaning services

One booking can hold several services at one fixed start time. At a move-in and move-out clean the rooms are empty, so every carpeted room can be booked with nothing to move. With deep cleaning in an occupied home, book only the spaces you can clear. Tile cleaning in the bathrooms belongs to that visit; tile and grout cleaning is not on this list. Sofas and armchairs are upholstery cleaning, priced by the piece from photos.