Dog on matress — You can use your carpet cleaner to clean your mattress, if it comes with a hand attachment. Make sure not to get it too wet.

Because of its name, many people assume that you can only clean carpets with a carpet cleaner. This is not the case, and the following is a list of some other items that can be cleaned:

1. Mattresses. Bedtime urine accidents are simple to clean with a carpet cleaner. A carpet cleaning machine is also good for removing mold, dust mites and dead human skin cells from mattresses. Just attach the hand attachment and clean thoroughly. Do not over saturate the mattress because this can result in mold spores. Make sure that you clean and dry one side of the mattress before cleaning the other side.

2. Curtains. Curtains can also be cleaned when using a portable carpet cleaner. You can also clean them when using a machine that is equipped with a hand tool that can reach high spots.

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3. Furniture. Furniture upholstery can be cleaned with a carpet cleaner. Stains due to pet accidents or snacking are easy to remove. Use the right cleaning solution based upon the furniture material and see our Ultimate Stain Guide for advice. Allow the proper drying time so that mold spores and mildew growth does not occur.

white sofa cleaned by upholstery cleaner — You can clean sofa upholstery with many carpet cleaners, but you need an upholstery attachment, and for best results, an upholstery cleaning solution.

4. Car upholstery. Car stains can be removed from seats and floors with carpet cleaning machines. This is possible by using a portable machine or one that has a long cord that reaches into the garage. You can also use the hand attachments to clean hard to reach places such as under the seats and in between seat cushions.

5. Comforters. Use carpet cleaning machines to spot clean large comforters or other types of large bedding items. Use the hand tool attachment to remove stains. Steam helps penetrate and remove stains. This method is usually more convenient than getting a rather large comforter dry cleaned.

6. Hard Floors. There are carpet cleaners that can clean multiple types of floors. They are specially designed to clean based upon the type of stain or material cleaned. The user has the option to change the setting. Each setting ranges from a light cleaning to powerful scrubbing modes.

Carpet cleaners are designed to clean different types of things, and are not always restricted to just cleaning carpets.

They can clean mattresses, pet stains, bedding, furniture, rugs and auto upholstery. Some can even clean ceramic tile and hardwood floors. With handy little attachments and portable machines a carpet cleaner is an easy way to clean several types of surfaces.