weena's Profile

My parent's house has tight, berber-weaved, carpeted stairs that I have not ceased to slip down every time I visit. Socks, shoes, barefeet, whatever.

This sounds gross, but what I did notice is that there is obviously a lot of foot traffic on those stairs. And despite my mother's best efforts to keep the stairs vacuumed and clean, there is an inevitable "slick spot" on the edges that you can see in certain light, from what I can only assume to be dirt and oils from walking on them. WIPEOUT!

Berber can be particularly hard to clean, especially if it's a poor quality Olefin or petro-plastic kind (it looks great on the samples, but beware!!!!). Basically, what you end up with are "melted" berber loops or fused fibers caused from the foot traffic throughout the years that no amount of vacuuming or cleaning can repair. As a matter of fact, many cleaning agents make it worse. Slick-city on a flight of stairs.

. . . . . .at least that's my theory.