Clingy Carpet

Clingy Carpet

• Saturday, March 3, 2012

I seriously am desperate for help.  My carpet is so CLINGY it drives me nuts!!  So we have a Shark Navigator vacuum which I absolutely LOVE.  We bought it when we lived in Wymount and it worked fabulously.  Then we moved into the yellow house where it also always worked like a charm.  Then we moved here.  And the vacuum still works wonderfully on the tile floor but my carpet is so darn stubborn that the vacuum does pretty much NOTHING there.  I'm pretty confident it is NOT the vacuum.  When I asked for advice on FB I don't know how many people told me "get a new vacuum" or "buy a Dyson" even though I clearly stated my vacuum was not the problem.  Maybe some of you have advice.

Here's what happens.  I vacuum the whole house.  Kitchen, bathroom, entry tile all looks fab.  Carpet, not so much.  Any loose crumbs get vacuumed up but any hair, string, or anything the carpet can grab on to stays behind.  This is what my living room looked like right after vacuuming today (and I do a thorough job, I don't just run the vacuum really quickly over the carpet):

Can you see all the little strings/lint?

Even with the close-up you can't see all the hair but I promise there are hundreds of strands lying around!

So if I actually want the carpet to look like I vacuumed then after I vacuum I have to take a lint roller to the carpet.  My apartment is small but still this takes FOREVER and I can only imagine how much more difficult it will get as my pregnancy progresses.  This is what the lint brush looks like after a few swipes (this is maybe from like 1 square foot):

Gross, right?

Disgusting.  I counted this time how many lint roller papers I went through for the living room.  Any guesses?  25!!  And by the time I was "finished" they were still totally filling up just after a few swipes.

I'm at such a loss as to what to do!!!  It seems like the carpet is static-y and that's why everything gets stuck (because it's even hard to pick the strings up with your fingers...the carpet just really holds onto them) but I've tried everything imaginable to "remove static" and nothing works!!  So I feel like it is just the carpet that is horrible!  I've tried rubbing dryer sheets over the whole carpet.  I tried spraying a solution of water and fabric softener.  This morning I used an entire bottle of static removal spray on the carpet.  Which, by the way, was probably a bad idea being pregnant.  The house seriously REEKED of fumes.  I opened all the windows and ended up leaving after a little while to go shopping because it was so strong.  I did spray the whole bottle, after all.  By the way, it didn't do any good.  I tried to vacuum after that and nothing.  I still had to lint roll.  If we weren't already planning to move out in August I would totally be looking for a new apartment.  Even though I love pretty much everything else about this place.  I've wondered if I asked the complex to replace the carpet if they would but I seriously doubt it.  They have no reason to since we have a contract through August so they know we can't just move out if they don't.

I seriously need help.  Any ideas???