What's the Least Toxic Way to Clean Carpets?

My mom swears by vinager and water. but if you are really concerned, why not just use hot water and see how it turns out? Anything other than water and vinager is a chemical, therefore it will be toxic.

If you decide to do it yourself and use carpet shampoo, the most important thing to do is make sure you rinse it well. 3-4 times, if possible. If any soup is left on your rug, it's will make it 10 times worse AND you'll have to re-shampoo it quickly. My sister never realized she should rinse it afterwards and her carpet was filthy within 2 weeks.

I have used vinegar in my hover steam cleaner with some essential oils to make it smell good. I get essential oils from GNC.

I was told once by a rug cleaning company to just use hot water in a steamer. When you use any kind of soap it leaves a residue on your carpet that will attract more dirt.

scotch guard is a chemical, so yes it is toxic. Most carpets come with some sort of stain guard these days, so it's almost unavoidable. And most carpet cleaners will strip the stain guard off. That's unavoidable too.

That being said, I use some great non-toxic cleaners on my carpet. I use them for spot treating and also with a carpet scrubber that my in-laws have. I mix a little bit of the all purpose cleaner and the laundry brightener with water and use that to clean the carpets. The cleaners are from Shaklee, and are part of their Get Clean line.

www.shaklee.net/rkklemm