step by step guide on how to remove pet hair in record time!
Pet hair can be everyone’s worst nightmare inside a car. Although the interior spaces of automobiles have become a lot larger, more ergonomic, and more insulated, they’re small, confined spaces to be spending your time in. The last thing you want is to inhale your pet’s hair on your everyday commute.
Here is my step by step guide on how to get your animal out of your interior
- Start by carefully removing any floor mats you have in your vehicle. This includes the trunk mat and spare tire cover. What this does is it removes a large portion of hair and debris that would otherwise have to be vacuumed up.
- Avoid any spilling back into the car by grabbing two sides of the mat and carrying it out of the vehicle. Now that the mat is out of the car, you can shake as much hair and dirt off of it into a trash can.
Work in sections
- It may seem overwhelming at first. To help with this, work in sections. I suggest working in the worst section first and then rewarding yourself with areas that are less intimidating.
- Slide the seats all the way forwards and all the way backwards
Agitate and blow out all areas
- After you’ve removed large loose objects from your car, this would be a great opportunity to use air to dislodge the hair. I suggest you wear some sort of face covering to prevent inhaling any hair strands. (An electronic air blower works well)
- Use a stiff bristle brush to stand up the fibers. A bathroom brush with plastic bristles works well for this. If you have a drill, these drill attachments will help dramatically. The same results can be achieved without power tools-It will just be more time on your part.
- It is very important for cleaners to penetrate the small fibers and gives room for the negative pressure of your vacuum cleaner to move through and out the carpet.
After the carpet has been agitated, continue to gather up as much hair as possible using a lily brush. These products serve multiple purposes if you have a pet that constantly sheds. Alternatively, you can use nitrile gloves and gather by hand.
Vacuum
- Begin the vacuuming process. Make sure you have the appropriate crevice tool attachment. Small narrow ones work the best!
- Spray degreaser and agitate sections that have interlocked with the fibers. Use a degreaser with the appropriate dilution ratio (EG super clean diluted 10:1).
- Allow the chemical to dwell on the surface and agitate with a brush
- Remove either by hand or with a vacuum.
What degreaser does, is it lubricates the hair up and off of the carpet, removing the bond and making it easier to clean.
Accept that you'll have to "re-do" sections
- Accept that you will have to readdress previous sections. Dislodging hair is a process that is difficult to confine to one area of the car. You will end up throwing hair forward, backward, up, and back in.
- To mitigate frustration, complete ~70% of the area and then move on. You will need to come back to it. By doing this, you’ll reduce the focus (and disappointment) on trying to achieve perfection and be able to refine the results later in the process.
Preventive measures
After you’ve done all that work, I doubt you’ll look forward to doing it again. During the cleaning process you’ll notice that the hardest spots to remove pet hair are the fabrics.
The best method of “damage control” is to cover up as many carpeted areas as possible. Think seat covers and rubber floor mats. My favorite product for preventing excessive pet hair build-up is weather tech.
In addition, the best time to clean up a mess is right after it happens. Regularly cleaning out your interior prevents permanent stains, and reduces the amount of agitation required to clean packed dirt and pet hair.