My friend, Angela, is in crisis. She is due to have her first baby in December and is getting increasingly worried about her carpets. Carpets? I would have thought she would have more to worry about, such as how on earth she is going to push a real live little person out of her body and how her partner is going to navigate the London traffic to get to the hospital when the time comes! As I have said before, I adopted so I have no frame of reference here.
Crawling
However, I DO understand where she is coming from. Bringing a new little person, whether it is a baby or a newly adopted Witchling, into a new home makes you think long and hard about all sorts of potential dangers. The thought of a baby crawling around on carpets where all sorts of germs and bacteria can lurk is enough to make the skin do its own crawling. For babies and toddlers in particular it is worrying to think of all the bacteria and germs hidden in your carpets. Many people consider splashing out on brand new carpets before baby comes home. The problem with this is that once baby has grown a little and is toddling around with a tip-up cup of milk or exploring the joys of finger painting, your ‘new’ carpets are not going to stay new for very long.

The best option by far is to get a reputable carpet cleaner in to steam clean the existing carpets. So this has been my advice to my friend. It seems pointless to replace ALL the carpets in your home, only to have to replace them again in a couple of years.

The NCCA (National Carpet Cleaners Association) recommends that carpets should be steam cleaned twice a year. This is an effective way to keep your carpets safe for children and will extend the life of the carpet in the long run.

So Angela is now planning to get all the carpets throughout her home professionally cleaned. Finding professional carpet cleaning in London shouldn’t take long and then she can get on with worrying about other important stuff such as how long it will be before she can see her feet again!