Cleaning Reddit Agrees: Everyone Should Own a Carpet Squeegee

Carpeted rooms come with a lot of benefits. The most obvious: Carpet, unlike hard flooring, is warm, soft, and comfy. If you live in a colder climate, your carpet will retain heat so your rooms stay a bit warmer. And, thanks to its high pile fibers, carpet will also trap dust-borne particles that would otherwise end up in the air or on your furniture. 

Therein lies one potential downfall. Carpet, especially the high-pile kind, will accumulate dust, dirt, hair, and other particles faster than you think. Unfortunately, unless you have a specific pet attachment or a high-end model, vacuuming often only skims the surface of your carpet — which could be a problem if you have a pet who sheds.

Thankfully, a collective hive of cleaning-fanatic Redditors have come together to endorse a simple (and effective) solution: Use a squeegee to pull tumbleweed-style balls of hair from your carpet, rugs, and even your upholstery. 

Yes, you’re reading that right — apparently, squeegee-ing carpet is a magical method for extracting tons of hidden pet hair you didn’t even know was there.

You already know how to use a squeegee on windows — now you just need to bring it down to your floor: Pull the squeegee slowly along your carpet in sections (with a little pressure for maximum effect) and then vacuum up whatever hair, dirt, and dust gets scratched up to the surface. And getting hands-on with your floors is going to give you a more precise clean than a vacuum, because you can get into corners and close to edges more easily.

How often you squeegee your carpet depends on a few factors, like whether you have a pet and how often you vacuum. One pet owner on Reddit says a Roomba that runs all day takes care of everyday dust and hair, but not so much trapped dog hair: “For me in an apartment, that means vacuum every two days and maybe once every other week squeegee.”

You might find the squeegee doesn’t pull a ton from your carpet, and that’s OK. You can also try this trick in other areas: Another Redditor says while they don’t use the squeegee for carpets and rugs, it does wonders for upholstery on couches and chairs, which “the vacuum, including the handheld pet hair attachment, does nothing to remove.”

The secret weapon several users swear by for extracting hair from carpet is a $10 stainless steel window squeegee from Home Depot, but you can grab a similar one on Amazon for a bit cheaper.

Mrs. Hinch, an Insta-famous cleaning influencer, uses a smaller plastic model like this Amazon one. In one of Mrs. Hinch’s popular videos, she uses the squeegee to clean hair from her carpeted stairway—so a mini squeegee might be better for you if you want to clean tighter or narrower spaces.

No matter how (or where) you squeegee, you’ll find some peace of mind knowing there aren’t any more hairballs lingering under your feet. Happy squeegee-ing!

This post originally appeared on Apartment Therapy. See it there: Cleaning Reddit Agrees: You Need a Carpet Squeegee, Like Yesterday