Put it back...you don't know where that's been!

I rented a steam cleaner this weekend. I wanted to clean the two Persians and our one area rug. Yes I do steam clean my Persians and you can if they are all wool. You use just plain water, medium warm (warmer than luke-warm but not scalding). This removes the dirt without taking the natural oils from the wool carpet fibers.

When I got home, I was absolutely disgusted by the cleaner and can not believe that people would actually use it and return it in that condition. It still had water in it (which I didn’t know), so thank goodness I put it in the trunk. Because the container was plastic the leftover water had that funky, stale, mildew smell. I emptied the thing in our backyard and saw the bottom. It was covered in dog hair and pastel blue carpet fibers. I yanked our normal vacuum outside and cleaned off the bottom. Scared of what it might do to our good carpets I tried it out on the area rug. This is a cheap synthetic fiber carpet from Belgium. Should something bad happen I can just throw it away without crying. It cleaned alright (that’s relative) but there was some kind of leakage somewhere. It left a 6 inch strip of the fringe, battleship grey! Sadly I think it also smells?? (I emptied the garbage this morning and if the smell is still there when I get home I will assume the stench is the carpet)

Needless to say I was sure as hell was NOT using that on my nice carpets. Instead I pulled out our US one and tried to figure out how to use it. No, I am not dumb folks I can use a steam cleaner but for the life of me and the hubby, the wattage on it was not listed. I tried the website as well, nope not there either. Not wanting to blow up me, the house, the carpet cleaner or my carpets I called my pops. He is an electrical estimator by trade and I used to pull wire and wire boxes for him as a kid. I can still wire most things but hate touching 220v crap. I knew there was a formula to figure out watts, with amps and voltage but couldn’t find it or remember. He gave me the formula to figure amps. No problem I just rewrote the damn thing – Yes! I finally used high school math for something.

It takes 1440 watts (120 volts X 12 amps). Cool we have a 2K watt transformer but it usually trips the breaker on just about any plug in our house. Did mention I swear that the house was built before the war? Anyways, I went to our bedroom plugged it in and using my rubber soled foot turned it on with my toe - hearing no “pop” I opened my eyes to find everything still working in the room. I then checked polarity and did a little dance that I didn’t have to change how the darn thing was plugged in. I drug the long hallway Persian upstairs and cleaned the two of them up there.

If the nasty smell is from the area rug, I will attempt to clean it with solution and our cleaner. I hate to do it and it’s not recommended by any electrician but I will probably have to run an extension cord from the transformer downstairs. I will just make sure that I use a heavy duty extension cord that’s grounded. (See daddy I am a good girl)

Oh hey CVG! I put up the rest of my toilet paper roll holders, as well as two towel holders and two art pieces (old window frames that were painted over and designed with cool stuff). Aren’t you proud girl? Timette the Toolgirl is back – LOL!!