If you share your home with a dog or cat (or both — no judgement here), you already know the joy they bring. You also know the chaos. The muddy paw prints after a walk through Kings Park. The mystery stain you noticed on a Monday morning. The fur that somehow ends up everywhere, including places your pet has never even been.
Living with pets in Perth is wonderful — but keeping your carpets clean? That’s a whole different challenge. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be a losing battle. With the right habits, the right products, and a little help from the professionals at Perth Cleaning Care, your carpets can look and smell great even with the most energetic furry housemates around.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Why Pet Owners Need to Think Differently About Carpet Care
Standard carpet cleaning advice is written for homes without animals. But pet owners are dealing with a completely different set of problems — and pretending otherwise leads to frustration.
Pets bring in dirt and bacteria from outside on their paws and fur. They shed constantly, pushing dander deep into carpet fibres where a regular vacuum struggles to reach. Accidents happen — especially with puppies, older dogs, or anxious cats — and urine in particular needs to be treated the right way, or it will keep coming back to haunt you (and your nose).
On top of all that, some standard cleaning products are toxic to pets, so be careful about what you use around them.
Once you accept that pet carpet care is its own thing, you can start approaching it properly.
Tip 1 — Vacuum More Often Than You Think You Should
Most households vacuum once a week. If you have pets, that’s probably not enough.
Pet hair and dander accumulate fast — particularly during shedding seasons, which in Perth can feel like they last most of the year thanks to our warm climate. Hair that sits in carpet fibres too long gets pushed deeper by foot traffic, making it harder to remove and contributing to that musty smell that builds up over time.
Aim to vacuum high-traffic areas and your pet’s favourite spots at least two to three times a week. Use a vacuum with a HEPA filter if you can — these are far more effective at trapping fine particles like pet dander, which can trigger allergies in both humans and other animals.
Go slowly. Multiple slow passes over the same area will lift far more hair than one quick swipe. And don’t forget the edges and corners — fur loves to gather there.
Tip 2 — Treat Accidents Immediately — Not Later
This is probably the most important tip on this list, so read it carefully.
When your pet has an accident on the carpet, the clock starts ticking straight away. The longer the urine sits, the deeper it soaks into the carpet fibres and the underlay beneath. Once it reaches the underlay, you’ve got a much bigger problem on your hands — the smell can become almost impossible to remove with surface cleaning alone.
As soon as you notice an accident, blot — don’t rub — the area with a clean, dry cloth or paper towels. Rubbing spreads the stain and pushes it further into the fibres. Keep blotting until you’ve absorbed as much liquid as possible.
Then apply an enzyme-based pet urine cleaner. This is crucial. Enzyme cleaners break down the uric acid crystals in pet urine at a molecular level, which is what actually eliminates the odour rather than just masking it. You can find these at most Perth pet stores or supermarkets. Follow the instructions on the bottle, allow it to sit for the recommended time, and blot dry again.
Avoid using ammonia-based cleaners on pet urine stains. Ammonia smells similar to urine to a pet’s sensitive nose, which can actually encourage them to return to the same spot.
Tip 3 — Baking Soda Is Your Friend
For general pet odours that build up gradually over time — that background smell that you’ve almost stopped noticing but your visitors definitely haven’t — baking soda is a simple and completely safe solution.
Sprinkle a generous amount of baking soda over the affected carpet, work it gently into the fibres with a soft brush or your fingers, and leave it for at least 30 minutes (overnight is even better). Then vacuum it up thoroughly.
Baking soda is non-toxic, cheap, and genuinely effective at neutralising odours. It won’t damage your carpet, and it won’t harm your pets. Make it a regular part of your routine — especially in rooms where your animals spend the most time.
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Tip 4 — Be Careful With the Products You Use
Not everything marketed as a carpet cleaner is safe to use around pets. Some commercial cleaning products contain chemicals that can be harmful to dogs and cats — particularly if they walk across a freshly cleaned carpet and then lick their paws, which they absolutely will.
Look for products that are labelled as pet-safe, non-toxic, and free from harsh chemicals like phenols (found in some pine-scented cleaners, which are particularly toxic to cats), formaldehyde, and certain essential oils like tea tree oil, eucalyptus, and citrus.
At Perth Cleaning Care, we use eco-friendly, non-toxic cleaning products that are safe for families, children, and pets — without compromising on results. If you’re concerned about what’s being used in your home, just ask us. Transparency is something we take seriously.
Tip 5 — Address Stains Promptly (Even the Non-Urine Ones)
It’s not just accidents you need to worry about. Pets bring in mud, grass, food, and all sorts of other things that can stain your carpet if left to set.
For mud, the counterintuitive advice is to let it dry completely first. Trying to clean wet mud just smears it further into the carpet. Once dry, scrape off the bulk with a blunt knife or spoon, then vacuum the area before treating with a gentle carpet cleaner.
For food stains, scrape up any solids first, then blot the stain from the outside edge inward — always toward the centre, never outward, or you’ll spread it. Use cold water for most stains; hot water can set protein-based stains and make them permanent.
For vomit (yes, this is a pet owner’s reality), remove solids carefully, then use a mixture of cold water and a small amount of dish soap to gently clean the area, followed by blotting dry. An enzyme cleaner works well here,e too.
Tip 6 — Don’t Underestimate the Underlay
When pet urine soaks through your carpet into the underlay beneath, surface cleaning alone won’t fix the problem. The odour will keep returning — especially in warm weather, which Perth has plenty of. Humidity causes dried urine residue to reactivate, and suddenly that old accident smell comes back seemingly out of nowhere.
If you’ve noticed a persistent smell in an area even after cleaning the surface, the issue is likely in the underlay. This is when professional carpet steam cleaning becomes genuinely necessary.
Professional hot water extraction — the method used by Perth Cleaning Care — penetrates deep into the carpet fibres and the layers below, removing bacteria, residue, and the source of the odour rather than just the surface layer. It’s the only reliable way to fully address deep contamination from pet accidents.
Tip 7 — Schedule Regular Professional Carpet Steam Cleaning
Even with the best daily habits, carpets in pet households need professional attention on a regular basis. We recommend that pet owners in Perth book a professional carpet steam cleaning at least once or twice a year — and more frequently if you have multiple animals, a large breed, or anyone in the household with allergies or asthma.
Perth Cleaning Care’s carpet steam cleaning service uses hot water extraction — the industry gold standard — to remove deep-seated dirt, allergens, bacteria, pet dander, and stubborn odours that regular cleaning simply cannot reach. It also helps extend the life of your carpet significantly, which makes it a smart investment as well as a health one.
Our team is experiencein d working in pet-friendly homes. We use products that are safe for your animals, and we’ll let you know how long to keep pets off the carpet after cleaning (usually just a few hours while it dries fully).
Tip 8 — Consider a Doormat Strategy
Prevention is always better than a cure. One of the simplest things you can do to reduce the amount of dirt, mud, and bacteria your pets track onto your carpets is to keep a good doormat at every entry point your pet uses.
For dogs, keep an old towel near the door and make wiping their paws part of your arrival routine. It takes about ten seconds and makes a surprising difference over time. Some owners also keep a small mat or rug in the main areas where their dog likes to lie — easier to wash a mat than to deep clean the whole carpet every week.
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When to Call the Professionals
There’s a lot you can do yourself to manage your carpets as a pet owner — and we genuinely hope these tips help. But there are times when a professional clean is the right call, and recognising those moments will save you a lot of frustration and money in the long run.
Call Perth Cleaning Care when you’ve tried everything and the smell still isn’t gone. When you’ve got old, set-in stains that home remedies haven’t shifted. When it’s been more than six months since your carpets had a proper deep clean. When someone in the household is struggling with allergies. Or when you’ve got a property inspection or end of lease coming up.
We service homes, rental properties, and businesses across all Perth suburbs — from Joondalup and Scarborough in the north to Canning Vale, Rockingham, and Baldivis in the south, and everywhere in between.
Final Thoughts
Pets make a house a home. The mud, the fur, the occasional accident — it all comes with the territory, and most pet owners wouldn’t trade it for anything. But you don’t have to choose between a happy pet and a clean, fresh-smelling home.
With the right routine, the right products, and the occasional professional carpet steam clean from Perth Cleaning Care, you can have both.
If you’d like to book a carpet cleaning service or just want a no-obligation quote, give us a call on 0450 046 209, send us an email at info@perthcleaningcare.com, or fill out our online booking form. We’d love to help you get your carpets back to their best.
