…My husband and I moved into a rustic country house in Spain. It was exquisite because it came furnished with Spanish antiques and carpets that were perfectly suited to the region.

We were both delighted until we couldn’t stop scratching the little red bumps that seemed to appear like magic every time we sat on the beautiful antique rug in the salon. After mush speculation we determined that the carpet was infested with fleas!

No more fleas please!

My husband’s first instinct was to toss the rug into the garage and forget about it, but the rug was so lovely that I decided to attempt cleaning it. There had to be a carpet rug shampoo available somewhere that killed fleas. Since it was a rural mountain area, this proved harder than expected.

Carpet shampooing was almost unheard-of in the south of Spain and most people either did not own carpets or only had small area rugs that could be easily washed or shaken. So, I applied a variety of flea sprays that did absolutely nothing and finally decided to do some research on carpet shampoo. Since everything is available by online, I set to work.

Here’s what I discovered:

Carpet shampoo for flea control is not only available but highly effective if used several times and if the carpets are regularly cleaned and if pets are also regularly treated for fleas. Hot water steam cleaning, along with a carpet shampoo usually destroys fleas. I also discovered that flea control carpet shampoo on the market today is not laden with toxic chemicals as I had supposed.

Okay, so I made a makeshift carpet shampoo machine by heating water and adding the carpet shampoo I had bought online. I then drenched the rug with this solution and used a wet- dry-vacuum to suck out all the water and fleas.

I used this odd carpet shampooing technique several times over the course of two months and vacuumed the rug daily with my Electrolux. The carpet fibers were starting to get a little stiff from all the water and I was wondering if I hadn’t ruined the carpet while eliminating the fleas.

Then I found that there was a dry foam carpet shampoo available in the UK, so I ordered some and gave it a try.

Since I didn’t have the compressor to make the foam I had to improvise, but I eventually had lots of foam which I spread over the rug. Since dry foam carpet shampoo crystallizes, it didn’t stay wet and I was able to vacuum up the granules. The rug regained its soft texture after doing this only twice.

The rug now rests in the salon in front of the fireplace, flea free!