My last post showed a rug that was damaged by not being attentive with a piece of dusting equipment on a Turkish rug.

The technician had not been careful with a heavy piece of equipment, and paid the price.

He was not trained by his instructors on how to keep from letting that happen when you are not paying attention to what you are doing. (See in the comments of that thread how to use Tyvek to protect from that damage.)

In the same week I was sent a photo of this nice wool rug that a professional cleaner bled.

Front side - red dyes have bled.

Back side - red dyes have bled.

Now…if there is ONE thing I’d like you to take away from this post, it is this:

HIGH HEAT IS BAD FOR WOOL RUGS!

(It’s also bad for silk, FYI.)

Think about your clothing for a minute…how many items do you wash in HOT water, and put in a HOT dryer?

Some, I know… but most, no.

Why?

Because many of the fibers – especially NATURAL fibers – have a problem with that. Loss of color, shrinking, loss of finishing and texture.

When was the last time you took your nice wool sweater and washed it in HOT water, and dried it on HIGH heat?

Now, wool rugs are different from wool fabrics in construction – but many of the characteristics, and risks, are the same.

And with this rug, the cleaner had two runners to clean. He used an approved WoolSafe shampoo, dye stabilizing solution, wash pit set-up, and truck mount with a water claw as well.

First rug – no problem.

Second rug, as the heat kicked in on his truck mount (he had set it low to begin with, and it increased over time)… suddenly a problem. The dyes bled. Despite the dye stabilizing solution.

He was working under two false assumptions here:

1) That dye stabilizing solutions “set” dyes indefinitely. They don’t. They give you a window of opportunity to clean, and if you have a rug with dyes that are not colorfast, that window is VERY small. You gotta wash it quick.

2) That HEAT is okay for wool. For oriental rugs, it is not. One of the reasons I test a rug’s dye strength with a HOT water test is because I want to know IMMEDIATELY if there is any chance at all a rug will bleed on me. I wash with cold, but I test with hot – to be safe. Sometimes rugs can bleed right away…sometimes it takes some time, so you need to know what you are working with, and use the right solutions to strengthen the dye-fiber bond during your thorough wash process.

Now…this professional cleaner was told by one of his instructors that wool is okay at up to 140 degrees of heat, so he was not worried…until it bled that is.

This was an IICRC-instructor who told him this. An instructor who is not a rug cleaner, but apparently gives some advice on rugs. I’m not sure why.

But, you see, with wool wall-to-wall installed carpeting, using heat to clean is commonplace. But generally you will not find in a home, installed wool carpeting with bright reds, blues, and other vivid acid dyes as you will with oriental rugs, or specialty fine fabrics.

In the latest cover story of Cleanfax Magazine, I mention several things that this post is focusing on: 1) the shortcomings in today’s training in the fields of rug cleaning and upholstery cleaning, and 2) that I believe someone well-trained in upholstery and fine fabric care would be a BETTER oriental rug cleaner than someone well-trained in residential carpet cleaning.

Here’s the article, which I co-authored with Jim Pemberton (an expert in upholstery and fine fabric care):

Cleanfax – Sept 2010 Cover

Homes with nice investment-grade textiles on their floors, almost always also have investment-grade fabric on their furnishings. They go hand in hand.

And with fine furnishings, or oriental rugs, there needs to be an EXCELLENT eye and hand for testing and inspection. Fiber tests, dye tests, construction identification, and inspecting for any pre-existing conditions that might hamper your cleaning results…or lead to a cleaning disaster. You need to be able to spot these BEFORE they become problems.

Something shared with a client before cleaning is EDUCATION, and after cleaning is an EXCUSE.

The more time you put into the front end with your attention to detail, the less you will spend on the back end trying to clean up a mess, or pay for one.

There is a serious shortcoming in our training today, at least in these specialty niches of oriental rugs and fine fabrics.

My hope is that making a post like my previous one (showing how a Rug Badger could damage a rug if you are NOT careful), and this one (showing how a mistaken belief about heat not being bad, and dye stabilizer being a “fix”), will help keep anyone in the rug cleaning world to be just a little bit more attentive to what they are doing.

This might be a 1 in 100 chance of happening to a rug cleaner…but I can tell you…being that one that it does happen to, really sucks.

Just ask the guys who handled these recent rug disasters.

Hope you enjoy the article!

- Lisa

They are “certified” – they hired the southern contingent rug training duo to teach them the IICRC course – so they were able to memorize the facts to pass the test… and they bought the products the instructors were selling… but it appears that perhaps they did not come away with “knowing” and understanding proper rug care in terms of heavy equipment on more fragile rugs.

For one thing… they mentioned the rug had already been properly “pit” cleaned by their instructors’ process.

Here’s a shot of one area – that by the way still STINKS:

The "clean" rug from the competitor still stinks.

Using a pit for cleaning is WAY better than surface cleaning with other methods (portable or truck mount) – but when you are dealing with a rug with dyes that are NOT colorfast, and you are NOT knowledgeable about how to clean rugs in that circumstance, then you do it too quickly from fear – and it does not come out being free of the contaminants… which is why this rug still smells.

There is still dog urine in it.

This company does a good volume of rugs, always has, but their target market is more those who are looking for the cheapest rug cleaning, versus the best care for the rugs. There’s a difference.

Some rugs are very inexpensive and the owners are not looking for specialists. They have a coupon. But sometimes people who have valuable rugs may not know it.  So though this company handles a lot of the commodity rugs out there, they do get “real” oriental rugs through their doors, and some of these we see…sometimes after things have gone wrong.  We get their “uh-oh’s.”

And this one was indeed an uh-oh… but not from the pee-pee.

Take a look:

This Turkish rug was brought in with several very large tears in it.  It is a strong woven rug, and we pulled on the torn areas to see if it was weak from dry rot or any other reason – nope, it was strong as can be.

But all of these torn areas…?!?  So my mother asked what happened, and their technician answered…

“It was BADGERED.”

Now, the Rug Badger is a dusting machine that BEATS the heck out of a rug to pound dirt out of it. This makes the wash process more thorough…but you have to be VERY careful with using this equipment on textiles.

The straps turn around and beat and beat, and it can pull up the edge of a rug, and BAM – this happens:

Long tears along the bottom half of the rug.

Now… my mother can repair this. It will take a bit of work, because it is 7 tears all along the bottom, each about a foot in length, but the cuts are clean cuts.

But what makes me mad is that these technicians feel confident about handling woven oriental rugs, because they have an IICRC patch, when they are simply not ready to be handling hand-woven rugs with very limited book-learning knowledge.

They provide inexpensive in-home cleaning of wall-to-wall carpet, but they believe in a few days of a sit-down test that they can now be “oriental rug specialists.” They in fact advertise this service (as do many carpet cleaning companies who specialize in in-home wall-to-wall carpeting but not natural fiber woven rugs).

I don’t fault them for trying to make more money by offering more services to their customers, and actually, there are more rugs to clean than skilled rug cleaners – so it’s a good specialty to get trained in.

It’s just if they are going to do a SPECIALIZED service, they should spend some time to REALLY learn it.

There is a myth in the rug cleaning industry – and in cleaning wall-to-wall carpet – that it is ALL about the equipment you use.

But in reality, it is the PERSON behind the equipment that is more valuable.

I can take a bucket of shampoo, some vinegar, and some hand brushes, and because I understand textiles and their care VERY well… I could out-clean a rug versus a person with a fully mechanized rug plant with hundreds of thousands in equipment.

In fact, this weekend in Las Vegas, I build a very rudimentary wash pit, and cleaned one of the most dangerous rug bleeders out there – a bright red Afghan wool rug – and did an excellent job with tools that were not made for “rugs.” But with the right cleaning solutions to stabilize the dye, the right shampoo, and keeping an eye on the process, several students and I got that rug washed and dried and looking fabulous.

Anyone else, with no understanding of the basics of rug cleaning, would have ruined that rug.

Why could I with low-tech tools be able to out clean a high-tech operation?

Because I understand what I am working on, and I have the attention to detail that would make the difference. A big difference.

It’s like the difference between running your car through the $7 car wash at Chevron, and getting a $200 mobile car detailing where every inch inside and out is sparkling.

This rug disaster is a crime.

It’s what happens when you put good equipment with bad training and give them a good rug to clean.

This is not the Badger’s fault – it is the operator’s fault. He should have been more aware that a soft woven rug like this could not take the beating.

I shouldn’t complain, because it’s a rug repair invoice, so it’s technically “business”… but it just irks me that these classes taught by instructors who have NEVER run a successful rug cleaning operation can mislead their students into thinking that EVERY rug is a piece of cake to clean, and that every piece of equipment can be equally applied to every rug.

There must be adjustments, and these adjustments come from understanding what you are working on, and predicting disasters BEFORE they happen.

For those of you who own Rug Badgers – please pay attention.  If you have a flexible wool rug, and you get too close to the edge, you run this risk here.

I personally do not have a Rug Badger in our plant, not because it is a bad piece of equipment – it can be a good time saver for smaller operations.  I just prefer the control of a Sanitaire vacuum, and it works well for us.  I’m not a big fan of aggressively beating natural fiber woven rugs.

I warn my students that sometimes this heavy equipment can risk structural damage. Besides this “badgering” – I have also seen the Centrifuge spinner unit split the backing foundation of a machine woven rug because it went too fast.

Just be careful and attentive. And ALWAYS check the foundation of the rugs closely for existing dry rot or structural problems BEFORE you beat the heck out of it.

- Lisa

I’ve been getting a few questions about rug repair, and my mother Kate and I recently spoke at the San Diego Weavers Guild meeting speaking specifically to rug repairs and our philosophies on them.

Here’s a simple little rug repair of field wear. Not reweaving, but selective embroidery stitching (to protect the original foundation fibers) and a little dye work to blend it in.

Field wear in an older Hamadan rug.

Tada! The Hamadan gets a facelift!

Several years ago we had a few sold-out hands-on rug repair clinics to train the basics of rug maintenance and specialty repairs. Not reweaving and reknotting rugs, but the most requested repairs: ends, sides, and field wear work (including patches).

After our presentation at this workshop we wondered – is it time to have some more Rug Repair Workshops?

So – if you are interested, let me know by posting down below in the COMMENTS. If there is enough interest then we will work together a curriculum, set some dates at our rug facility in San Diego, and let you know how to register.

Enjoy your weekend!

- Lisa

With hand woven rugs, when the fringe is torn or worn, the knots of the rug start to slide away and off.

You rug starts slowly shrinking, and gets shorter and shorter.  Like this:

This end is unraveling and losing its wool knots (back side view).

Once a knot has pulled loose, you cannot resecure it… it is lost FOREVER.

That’s why when your fringe gets VERY short, you need to pay attention.

The value of your rug is in those tiny little knots. You want to keep them in tact. But sometimes when you try to do good and grab some wool and thread, you might actually cause more damage than good.

Fringe is too short on this rug, this repair won't hold.

This rug has fringe that is way too short, and you can see someone’s attempt to tie off the tassels is actually sliding off, and pulling some knots with it.  Too little too late.

An attempt at darning the edge is doing nothing to secure this rug.

Another attempt at trying to use a whip stitch to darn this end is doing no good either. By pulling that thick wool through the foundation to try to hold the edge together, the person has actually loosened those rows of knots and this edge will pull apart sooner as a result.

Good intentions, bad results.

Sometimes you take your rug to someone who decides that using an industrial serging machine to machine repair the edge is a good option. This also is a very BAD choice.

Do not machine repair a hand woven rug. It damages the rug, and it's ugly.

This is heartbreaking… a sewing machine happy idiot decided to machine repair a hand woven rug. Not only is the color choice ugly, but this type of machine work causes structural damage to the rug that cannot be reversed.

The reason hand woven rugs are repaired by hand is so that the Rug Repair Specialist can slip the needle around, and inbetween the foundation fibers (warps and wefts).

A serging machine does not go around fibers – it powers right through them, over and over and over again.

Over time these repairs will tear away, and pull away inches of the rug that could have been saved if it had been repaired by hand.

If you are talking about an investment textile, the more inches you lose, the more value you lose. Simple as that.

When this machine repair tears away, the rug will need to be reduced further to provide enough warp length to anchor a solid repair with. (Remember those VERY short fringe tassel stubs up top in photo #2? You need more length than that to hold a good end repair in place.)

What does a good end repair look like? There are several styles, but this is my favorite – an overcast stitch:

Properly executed end repair overcast stitch. Strong and long lasting.

Your stitch should use a strong upholstery thread that will not get brittle over time. Your stitch should vary now and then to lower weft threads so that the tension of the stitch is evenly distributed so it will not unnecessarily pull the edge loose.  Your buttonhole stitch, flat along the top, should be close to the outermost weft thread to hold the edge tightly in place.

Many rug repair facilities, like ours, guarantee their overcast repairs for the life of the rug. This is because, when it is done properly, it should never need to be done again.

Now… if your vacuum cleaner sucks up and tears off the edge, that is a different matter. There are no guarantees to help someone not paying attention.

If you have a hand woven rug, and the edge is unraveling, make sure the repair is done by hand.

If you have a rug cleaning facility, and want to know some rug repairs that you can do without having to be trained by a rug repair specialist, be sure to opt-in for the Simple Rug Repairs Report I’ve made available. The opt-in box is at the top of this blog, over to the right. Enjoy!

- Lisa

Hot water and detergent shrinks and yellows the rug on the left.

For the complete blog post about these two rugs, and this client’s unfortunate accident with her washing machine and this rug, visit Rug Care Central for this Flokati post.

Hot water, alkaline detergents, and hot air quick drying do not work well with wool.

Lisa

With an inexpensive tufted rug, this can be a blessing because it is protecting a much more valuable wood floor underneath it.

With an oriental rug (hand woven), this can be a curse because pet urine on a rug is one of the most dangerous spills on a textile – not only for the rug itself, but for the occupants if you allow the accidents to happen over and over.

With woven rugs, the foundation fibers are typically cotton. This means the wool fibers are tied around cotton warps. So pet urine (or vomit or #2) will penetrate the wool fibers – because this accident is hot and acidic – and will become absorbed by the cotton interior fibers. This means the accident you see is only the tip of the sewage iceburg.

This Chinese rug has much more urine absorbed within its foundation fibers.

Ideally, when you notice an accident has happened – you jump to action. These are your spills steps:

1) If there is anything to scoop up – scoop it up. Blot up what you can with a cotton towel.

2) Pour some club soda (or if you have no soda water – a 50/50 mixture of white vinegar and cool water) into a container. Use a sponge, wringing out the excess, and DAMPEN the affected area. Then blot with a cotton towel to pull out the urine or vomit or fecal matter.

3) Blot until you see nothing coming into the towel. Then take a hair dryer on warm (not hot) and dry the fibers. Ideally raise the rug up in this area so air flow is along both sides.

WARNINGS! If you see the rug dyes transfer into the towel, you need to stop getting the rug damp, and blot and dry as quickly as possible. If you get a woven rug too wet you will risk potential mildew and mold problems, so do not get the fibers WET, just damp. If you SCRUB wool instead of blot, you can potentially create fiber distortion/breaking.

The bigger problem with rugs comes when you allow repeated pet accidents on your rugs. The stains will be permanent, the odor strong, and long term exposure can lead to mildew and dry rot of the rug.

Besides of course the fact that this becomes an open pet toilet in your living space – which is not good for the health of you or your family.

Mildew growth on back of Persian rug with repeated pet urine activity - this is the stage before dry rot sets in.

The only way to remove the urine from the inside of these rugs is to have them completely immersed in a plant specializing in washing rugs. The rug needs a thorough bath.

Cleaning rugs like these in the home only surface cleans them. It gets the top fibers cleaner, but does nothing to the inside fiber contamination.

They may spray some disinfectant, or deodorizer on the rug to make it smell “good” – but smelling good does not mean it is CLEAN. This is not any different than spraying fragrance on a diaper, and then expecting it to be used again. It may not smell bad – but you know that would be completely unacceptable and unhealthy.

Proper cleaning presents a catch 22 though, because what is needed is a good thorough soak for an extended period of time. You soak it first in white vinegar (acetic acid) to penetrate the inside of the rug to liquify and help remove the urine salts from the inside of the rug – many times you can see the water literally run gold from pet problems.

However, pet urine stains, if they have sat on the rug for longer than a week, can create a break in the dye bond to the wool and can make even very colorfast rugs “bleed” during the wash.

The catch 22 is that because there are pet urine stains, the rug needs to be soaked completely… but because there are pet urine spills the dyes will likely bleed if the rug is washed, no matter what a professional cleaner does to stabilize dyes during cleaning.

It is important, if you are a rug cleaner, to inform your client of this, and to make sure they are informed of these four things: 1) the rug must be given a wet wash to remove the odor causing contaminants from the inside of the rug; 2) that pet urine stains are permanent; 3) that even though white vinegar will be used to remove the urine salts, and stabilize dyes during the wash process, pet affected areas are likely to bleed despite all of your best efforts; and 4) that pet urine causes damage to rugs that devalues them permanently.

If a rug can be cleaned properly soon after any significant pet accident, you can avert permanent damage. If a rug cleaning cannot happen quickly, then the steps outlined in this post can help you minimize the damage.

It might be a good idea to either toss some cheaper rugs over the top of your valuable ones during the hectic holidays, or roll them up until your company – and happy chaos – passes and your pets get back to being wonderfully well-behaved.

Happy New Year!

- Lisa

Some rug owners LOVE it… most rug cleaners HATE it. Why all the drama?

Well, it starts with the fact that when the rug is brand new, it tends to have the bright white, immaculate cotton fringe. It just looks so… NEW.

When rug owners send their rugs off for a professional cleaning, the fringe tassels are usually gray and dirty, and they want them that brand new white again.

But that white is just not natural. And it never was. Just like those Hollywood smiles you see (despite their daily coffee intake) – those pearly whites just don’t happen naturally. They are enhanced, with hydrogen peroxide and other bleaching agents.

That fantastic white fringe is also “enhanced” – and as you know when you repeatedly use chlorine bleach on cotton t-shirts, it will yellow, and it will tear and become brittle. And with fringe this means, the tassels simply begin to break and tear off from foot traffic or your vacuum cleaner – like this:

Repeatedly bleached fringe will begin to tear off.

The use of bleaching agents, or hydrogen peroxide, is a common mistake made by both unskilled cleaners and rug owners to try to “clean up” the look of fringe.

Unfortunately bleach is not a cleaning agent. You need to use actual cleaning solutions and some good old elbow grease to remove soil from fringe. Most don’t have the patience to do it correctly, so they are looking for the quick fix - which is why they grab the bleach.

But think about it… if you had heavily soiled shoelaces (also cotton), and you threw it in your washing machine with hot water and a lot of bleach – how would they turn out?

I’ll give you a hint… TERRIBLE.

To get them clean you need to soak them, scrub them, use some detergent to get them looking decent. And getting them to look like brand new again, when they have been beat up for years? That’s a tough job for anyone.

That is the state that many rugs left without a cleaning for longer than a few years gets to, with VERY dirty fringe. And the owners expect a miracle. This is why many rug cleaners hate fringe. And for the less experienced of them, they may grab that bleach to try to create a shortcut to a great look.

However, many do not realize that the bleaching of the fringe done before the rug was even sold, by the manufacturer, can sometimes create deterioration of those cotton fringes that can quickly worsen with future attempts to “whiten” them.

One country notorious for aggressive whitening of fringe is China – you may recognize their distinctive fringe type here (every country finishes their fringe off in a particular way):

Chinese rugs tend to develop yellowed and weak fringe tassels over time.

I personally am not very fond of fringe, especially long fringe tassels. Sometimes I think it would be nice to just get some scissors and cut those strands clean off… but then I have to stop myself.

You see the fringe tassels are actually the warp foundation fibers of a hand-woven rug. This means cutting them off is a huge NO-NO, because the rug will unravel.

Fringe tassels are the foundation fibers of a woven rug.

The better option is to hide the fringe behind the rug. To either use masking tape to hold it underneath the rug (masking leave little adhesive on the cotton), or to use a strip of material to hold the tassels under the rug and cover them up so they stay in good shape.

Hiding the fringe also means they do not have to be continually bleached to make WHITE again, and then they don’t break off and risk the rug knots pulling away and letting the rug unravel.

Hand-woven rugs made well should last several lifetimes. They should outlive us, and our kids, and our grandkids.

Let’s help make that happen by keeping the bleach away from them.

- Lisa

Me and the Falls

One of the many rugs we handled in the clinic was a rug that they asked me how to make it “white” again – here it is:

Hand woven wool rug from India

The question is – is this rug WHITE to begin with?

A white towel shows us the yellow of this rug.

One of the dangers of seeking out white and ivory rugs is that they do have a tendency to YELLOW over time.

If you look at a sheep, none are truly that Colgate-white-teeth white. So the wool when sheared, tends to be heavily bleached to create that “white” look. So the end result is not quite natural (just like those smiles make you wonder what the heck they painted on those teeth… they don’t look natural.)

Now, sometimes, improper cleaning (i.e. using the wrong cleaning solutions) can yellow a rug. If it is a result of the CLEANING then it would have the problem only on the front side of the rug because that is the side being cleaned.

If the yellowing is from the environment (i.e. foot traffic and sunlight exposure), then again, this yellowing would be on the front side only because the back has not been walked on or placed in those UV rays.

Let’s take a look at the back side compared to the front:

Comparing the back and the front of the rug.

In this case, the back side IS yellowing the same as the front, so this is simply the effect of age to the wool used in this rug. Again, BRIGHT white is not a natural color of wool, so this process to make it more appealing for the buyer has the negative effect of turning yellow.

Be sure to rotate the rug in the setting, as it can look more white from one direction versus the other. And just realize when you are shopping for rugs, that the white state can only be temporary with wool. It’s just the way it was made, and there is nothing wrong with the rug itself… and though professional cleaners may be able to lighten the look a touch with some oxidizers or reducing bleaches, these solutions (just like the original treatment) are chemical treatments that DO cause damage to those fibers. Some cleaners may refuse to do the work for fear of creating structural problems for the rug.

One solution may be to simply buy a blue rug instead.

- Lisa

Several years ago we had a semi truck pull up with an ENTIRE storage facility of rugs brought to us. The property was on some low lands (not uncommon) and the units were flooded.

Besides of course the expected problems with dye bleed in rugs improperly exposed to water, we also opened up rugs eaten by bugs because they had been stored dirty and left alone for YEARS.

If rugs are going into storage they MUST be washed, and ideally treated with an insect repellant, or packed with cedar chips, or (my least favorite) moth balls.

When wrapping  a rug for storage, use PAPER not plastic. Wool has a moisture content, and with temperature changes it can “sweat” and create a mildew problem or musty odor. The rug needs to be able to breathe. We use Tyvek paper when we wrap rugs – it’s tear-resistant (to keep rodents out) and water-resistant.

Tyvek (white) for long term wrap, Kraft (brown) for short term.

We use Kraft paper for short term wrap, and Tyvek for long-term. We buy Kraft paper at any Grainger, and we order rolls of Tyvek at Material Concepts.

If you have multiple rugs to store, it is easy to write on Tyvek with a Sharpie pen or other permanent marker, and we like to put photos of the rugs on the ends as well so you can SEE which rug is which. This is very helpful if you are moving and a number of rugs in your big moving truck.

Photos or text on wrapping let's you quickly identify your rugs.

A few final storage tips: elevate the rugs on chairs or boxes in your unit (in case it floods), and have photographs and measurements on file (in case they are stolen).

Hopefully these tips will help you protect your investment rugs  when they go into storage.

- Lisa

But they are not the only culprits. If you do not keep your rugs clean, and there are food spills, or drink spills, you can attract insects who are eating the “food” but also the wool that has absorbed it.  Like a shish-kabob for bugs!

Since many rugs have a COTTON foundation, which these bugs do not eat, most moth or carpet beetle damage will look like this – empty spaces of white cotton foundation threads peeking out at you.

Areas of a Wilton rug where the wool has been eaten away.

Wool-munching bugs like dark areas without much air circulation. This means you will tend to find their “activity” on the underside of a rug, or behind a large drape, or under a sofa, or on the backside of a textile hanging up on a wall.

It is important, especially if a rug has been in place for 6 months or longer without much activity to make sure that bugs are not making a feast of your rug. When you are vacuuming a rug (ideally with a canister vacuum – little abrasion so you can do it weekly), be sure to flip over the corners and sides and run the vacuum head over the edges to pick up any LINT that may actually be larvae. Moth eggs do sometimes resemble sticky lint, so you want to keep an eye out.

By creating air flow under the rug, and moving it around, you can dissuade bugs from making a home there. You can also set smaller rugs out in the sunlight (face down) for a half hour to hour while you are cleaning the underneath flooring. This open air and sun will also make unwanted bugs get the heck out of Dodge and move to the next home.

Pulling down hanging rugs and vacuuming the back of the rug is very important, especially if you have tribal pieces such as American Indian weavings. These pieces tend to have “tastier” unprocessed wool for bugs, and with some (such as pieces from Morocco), there can be wool that has not had as thorough a cleaning process before being exported and so they may have carried over some of their own indigenous insects.

Wool is an incredible fiber. It is strong, it is dyed vibrantly, it is incredibly environmentally friendly because it is a renewable resource.  People love wool … and unfortunately so do bugs.

Wool is also an AMAZING filter for the air because it can grab and hold dust and grit, pounds of it, and still look clean. When you wait to clean your wool rug when it looks dirty, you are already months behind the ideal time, and that packed in grit causes abrasion that makes your rugs wear down. Think of a tiny rock in your shoe, how the tiniest one can drive you nuts. Now think of thousands of tiny little rocks rolling in those wool fibers that you are walking on – that is why rugs can wear down over years of misuse.

Running vacuum along the back of a rug can shake out pounds of soil.

Wool rugs can last for CENTURIES under the right conditions – which includes regular dusting (vacuuming) and washing.

 And your best protection against BUGS?  Have your rugs regularly cleaned. This not only makes your home environment cleaner, but removes unwanted guests in your wool fibers before they begin causing real damage, AND removes the grit that causes rugs to wear down sooner than they should.

By having the rug sent out for a bath, you can thoroughly clean the rug and have it come back residue – and bug – free. You can apply “chemicals” to try to mothproof the piece, but these are poisons, and are only appropriate if you are packing the rug away for years in storage. An insect repellant is a safer choice, if you must have something applied because your home is prone to moths and carpet beetles.

The safest option of course is to simply clean the rugs regularly, and vacuum them regularly, which is better for you, your family, and your home anyway.  And… no chemicals you have to worry about your kids and pets crawling over.

I like residue free … it just makes life cleaner and simpler.

- Lisa