Your carpets can hold things like mold, fungi, bacteria, pesticides, toxins, mildew and more. If your carpet is dirty, these dangers are very high and your home can be hazardous to your health. The dangers lurk beneath the surface when your children play on the carpets or when you lay down on it to just relax with your family or friends. Latest estimates showed that around 80 per cent of all human exposure to pesticides occurs indoors. Dirty carpets can hold around 8 times their weight in toxins, dirt, fungi, bacteria and many more. Respiratory issues and allergies are the minor health problems associated with poor air quality. But, it can also cause major health problems such as poisoning from pesticides and toxins in carpets. Regular carpet cleaning is the solution for reducing risks of exposure to these dangers.

Dangers Present in Dirty Carpets
Fungi and Mold
Lots of fungi and molds can occupy your home and some of them cause serious health problems and even death. Cladosporium, Geotrichum, alternaria, rhizopus and asperigillus are the potential bedmates. 

Norovirus
This is also known as Norwalk virus and it causes symptoms similar to stomach flu or food poisoning. These viruses have the ability to survive in your carpet for 4 to 6 weeks. It becomes airborne when you walk or roll across. You are in more danger because prevalence of dust is very high in Singapore.

Campylobacter 
This is extremely dangerous during winter months. They can cause potentially deadly disease called campylobacteriosis, which is extremely dangerous to people with a compromised immune systems like the elderly and small children. Symptoms include fever, abdominal pain, cramping, and bloody diarrhea. 

Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus
It has the power to resist penicillin and it is considered as the superhero in the world of bacteria. Staphylococcus Aureus can run rampant in your carpet, especially in the house of an athlete because they bring it home from locker room or gym. Athletes bring home everything after sweating through practice. So, you should not walk barefoot on your carpet. Healthy people can carry MRSA for hours or even years. They cause red bumps, which become larger and more painful over time and results in rashes and fever. If it becomes untreatable, eventually, it may lead to death. 

Enterococci
In normal case, these bacteria exist in your intestines. However, some species of enterococci can cause serious infections in humans. They can cause meningitis, diverticulitis, bacterial endocarditis, bacteremia, and urinary tract infections. 

Micrococcus 
This can create dangers in people with compromised immune system. They can cause septic shocks, serious looking skin infections, meningitis and even death.

Kawasaki Syndrome
It happens when you inhale chemical toxins and bacteria from carpets that adhere to the lungs. It causes physical disabilities and even death. 

Salmonella
It can lead to fever, abdominal cramps and diarrhea when it is tracked into home by everyone from children and adults to pets. 

Health Risks of Dirty Carpets
Athlete’s Foot
People love to walk barefoot on carpets. However, a dirty carpet can hoard both living and non-living irritants to your skin, which can cause itchiness, redness and even swelling. he problem becomes complicated when common house pests such as rats and roaches attacked to the fibers of a dirty carpet. These pests carry harmful germs. Exposure to these gems can cause more serious health problems. Athlete’s foot is a common and extremely annoying skin condition associated with dirty carpets. This is a contagious fungal infection and it can be acquired when you walk barefoot on a fungi infested carpet. When you do so, fungi exploits cuts, breaks and scratches in your skin and breeds there. It will cause chronic itching. 

Respiratory Issues
Dirty carpet is the robust habitat for foot fungus and tiny organisms. Molds and volatile compounds multiply rapidly as human skin cells, pet hair and dirt that serve as their food. These organisms can cause various respiratory issues when they are inhaled. The problems can range from coughing and runny nose to cold like symptoms, adverse allergic reactions and asthma attack. 

Dust Mites
Dirty carpet is the dream home of dust mites. They can hide in fibers and enjoy plentiful supply of fungi, bacteria and human skin cells. When you inhale the microscopic dead bodies of these dust mites, it will cause skin rashes, eye and nose irritation and other problems. 

Solutions
When you think about potential hazards at your home, carpets come last in your mind because they bring you the images of warmth, comfort and style. In reality, they can cause significant health risks and they should be cleaned on regular basis. 

Proper Regular Vacuuming
Slightly moldy carpets can be cleaned with regular vacuuming. However, if your carpet is infested with serious mold, water damaged or contact with high humidity, vacuuming will be the worst thing. Vacuuming such carpets will stir up millions of spores. Professional mold remediator is essential for removing highly infested carpets. Vacuuming can be used for cleaning dirty dusty carpets. 

Professional Cleaning
Even the best vacuum can pick up only 15 per cent of debris and dirt in carpets. Therefore, you must hire a professional carpet cleaning service to do the task perfectly and professionally. This is helpful for ensuring your carpet is sanitary and safe. Professional carpet cleaning service will have all equipment and experience to remove dirt and toxins from your carpet completely. If your carpet smells musty soon after shampooing or steam cleaning, it is the sign of a problem. It can be the indication of existing fungal or bacterial contamination in carpets. Carpets must be dried completely soon after cleaning otherwise it will lead to the microbial growth. All these problems can be avoided if you hire the right and most professional carpet cleaning service in Singapore. 

Replacement
If your carpet has reached certain level of contamination, it is no longer reasonable to remove dust, dirt, dust mites, pollen and settled spores from your carpets. If vacuuming is not productive and shampooing or steam cleaning produces odors, it is better to replace old carpets with new ones. If you are suffering from dust mite allergy, mold allergy and asthma, you can consider other flooring options. The surface of your carpet may look like harmless, but it can be filled with fungi, microbes, and other irritants. As a home owner, you may be concerned about small amounts of visible mold in shower grout or on your wall. However, you may neglect massive amounts of unseen contamination in your carpets. If you do not maintain your carpet clean and dry, it will become the breeding ground for fungal organisms, dirt and dust mites. You should seek the help of professional cleaning company to remove foot fungus and other harmful organisms from your carpet.