I know those carpet powders are sold in stores everywhere and some have seals of approval by magazines, but DON’T use them!! Now, this is sort of my pet peeve as I vacuum this stuff all the time and see what happens to carpet……first of all most people do not vacuum every day and have vacuums that aren’t powerful enough to get it all out and so when the perfume dies out, the remaining residue holds on to the yucky smells in the carpet/home and so then more is sprinkled…..endless cycle and all that residue grinds on the fibers like sandpaper…wearing out fibers and lustre and holding smells and dampness…..they make things worse!! Think about the baking soda you put in your fridge to absorb the smells…..well, carpet powders do tthe same thing and soda sprinkled on carpets do the same thing…..so at first everything truly smells better, but it is really difficult to get all that powder out once it’s sprinkled….we sometimes use a vacuum with the clear canister and you can just see layers and layers of white powder swirling into the canister even after the homeowner tells us they “just vacuumed”……Now, if it’s used just one time….maybe……but the perfume will go away and then you have a magnet for all the bad smells in the home……and lots of times, lets face it……people with pets and their accidents are trying to do something about that SMELL I know it’s tempting and seems like a reasonable fix (once we moved into a home with pet urine on a carpet and my wife used some as a last resort desperate effort to make it better and the result was a sickly sweet nauseating smell that led the landlord to replace the carpet…..hey…I just realized carpet powders aren’t always bad! Use vinegar and water when your pet has a urine accident after soaking up all you can. This will help cut through the odor and won’t just mask it. Then call a professional cleaner to remove as much as possible and use a microbial enzyme to attack the bacteria causing that smell
