Last year, you might remember Ronin (at 4 years old) had a “little” accident that ultimately flooded 3/4 of our home, both upstairs and downstairs. If you haven’t heard the story, I have a little public service announcement that I think we all need to hear.
PSA: Part 1–Please tell your 4 year old what is under the toilet seat tank and remind them not to lift it before their curiosity gets the better of them, they lift it, drop it and break the pipe at the wall behind the shut off valve. Part 2–Be sure to familiarize yourself with how to shut off your home’s water, both at the house and at the curb. Trust me when I say, shutting it off at the house may not completely shut off the water.
Ok, PSA over. Now back to Mohawk carpet.
While I was at the License to Spill booth, the lovely team at Mohawk got me in on the demonstration. I got to try to ruin their carpet by squirting red wine, soy sauce and blue power aid all over it, which was pretty fun.
But the really cool part was how we got it clean. We literally just poured water on it and the stains literally streamed off. Now obviously you won’t be able to tip your own carpet like this and pour water on it. But you can very easily use plain water and a rag to dab at the carpet and clean it with ease.
My kids were sick last weekend and it was raining pretty hard, so they didn’t get to go with me to Festa Italia. So I brought home a few Mohawk SmartStrand carpet squares to do the experiment at home. And they happily got in on it. What kid wouldn’t love that! At home we started with squares of the stain resistant carpet shown below. They poured balsamic vinegar, red sore throat spray and ketchup–three things we very often use in our home–on the carpet.
Next they took plain water in a water bottle and sprayed the stain away. Both the sore throat spray and the vinegar poured right off with the water. I have to admit the ketchup was a little tougher but all we had to do was dab at it with a rag and scrub it just a little to remove the red stain. Super simple.
As as you can see, the carpet was 100% back to normal.
So how does SmartStrand carpet work.
According to Mohawk, this carpet has permanent stain and soil resistance that will never wear off. Most carpets have stain and soil treatments that are applied topically to the fiber. Over time, in the face of foot traffic, and due to wear and tear, the topically applied stain and soil treatment wears off. This can leave ordinary carpets looking worn out and dirty sooner than you might expect. With SmartStrand, you don’t have to worry about that. For as long as you have the carpet, it will have stain protection because it is built into the carpet fiber itself.
And you know what else that means. No off-gassing from the soil resistance topical treatments used on most carpets.
Pretty cool.
As I said SmartStrand is extremely easy to clean. You don’t have to use any harsh chemicals or carpet cleaners to remove stains as I saw with both of my tests. I think everyone has a flooring horror story, maybe not like your whole house flooding but still, you probably know what I mean.
After coming home from the event, of course I had to look up the carpet manufacturer of the new carpet we just had put in last summer after the flood. And sadly it was NOT Mohawk. And after this test, I’m pretty bummed about that. With a potty training 3 year old, and messy 6 year old, who wouldn’t want to have stain proof carpet.
And now for the giveaway!
Mohawk has a giveaway going on right now for an opportunity to win a 6-foot x 9-foot SmartStrand Silk bound carpet rug. Just visit, http://www.mohawkflooring.com/licensetospill/seattle/to enter by October 28th. Not only do they have beautiful carpet colors but I also got to see some of their cool textured carpet that would make really pretty bound rugs for you home.
