If you’re anything like me buying a rug is a big decision. We don’t have bundles of money and rugs are big purchase items in the Smith household… ok anything over $30 is a big purchase up in here!
Money doesn’t grow on trees after all! 😉
So when I started to look at rugs 2 years ago I looked at everything under the sun… I wanted to make sure that I purchased something we truly loved. I looked and looked but when I stumbled upon this gorgeous office makeover by Centsational Girl… I knew my search was over.
I’d fallen in love and nothing short of that rug would do! I just had to have it! I read review after review and everyone said it was just as fabulous in real life as in the photos. At $404 on Overstock this Safavieh rug was just a tidge out of our price range! I mean we bought the 8 x 10 turquoise rug in our living room for $50!
I pouted for about a year while I searched for something I loved just as much. Luckily my search was cut short by a big shiny bow under the Christmas tree. I screamed like a baby when I unwrapped that big gorgeous rug! Rolling it out in our bedroom later that evening made me giddier than a little girl unwrapping a pony.
Yup I just compared a rug to a pony. That’s right!
So here’s where things get tricky. Our big pretty new rug is rolled out in the bedroom. I absolutely love it: the pattern, the color, the thickness! It’s perfection rolled up and laid out in a rug!
But after a night or two I notice that our pets have *ahem* used a corner as their own personal bathroom. I freak out… this is a $400 rug not a toilet! We cleaned the rug and made sure to put the dog out to potty every hour just to make sure she had absolutely no inclinations to do it again.
You guessed it… it happened again!
We cleaned it as best as we could… even rented a rug doctor from the store to clean the spot but since this particular rug is uber thick we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere! The light color of the rug didn’t help either… it wasn’t visible unless you took a flashlight and directly lit the carpet! Which means several times a day you could find me in the bedroom with my phones flashlight carefully inspecting the carpet!
Over the next couple months it kept happening and despite my best efforts I couldn’t get the animals to stop! Now if you’ve read our About Me page you now that our fur babies are 10, 5 and 3. They’re all potty trained and I wasn’t having any problems with the other 3 rugs in our house… just this one.
Fed up I called our local carpet cleaner to get a quote for cleaning the rug… I thought that perhaps the rug was so thick that I wasn’t getting all the smell out and the animals were attracted back to that smell.
Nope.
Not it.
My Mom has brought many carpets to the gentlemen at Premier Carpet Care, they do a wonderful job and really know their stuff so I trusted them to fix my gorgeous carpet! (This isn’t a sponsored post or anything, their a small town business! I just really like them!) I thought we would get a quick wash and be on our way but the gentlemen I talked to asked lots of questions.
He said that he has been cleaning carpets for 30 years and if it was up to him no one would ever buy a Safavieh rug again. Still completely in love with my carpet I thought that was a little harsh!
He explained that my rug was made from a special kind of wool in India and that prior to shipping the wool strands were specially coated with a certain chemical. He used all kinds of professional names and big-bang-level chemical competitions that I really couldn’t explain to y’all!
The bottom line was that this chemical basically looks all animals in the eye and whispers “please come potty on me.” Yup my fur babies weren’t smelling themselves on the rug… they were smelling the rug!
He explained to me that the only way to fix the problem was to build a pit and soak the rug in a solution that would strip the chemical off the rug while protecting the strands. Then the stains could be cleaned!
If I had known about the extra-special-wool-chemical-from-India I’d like to say I would have been practical… picked a different rug and all that jazz. We all know that isn’t true!
Even after all the hassle I absolutely love this rug! 
Hindsight is always 20/20 and I’m glad I have access to a rug man with 30 years of knowledge behind him. Even after all of the online reviews I perused before I purchased this rug I haven’t found another story quite like mine. It happens though… the rug man says this wasn’t his first rodeo with a Safavieh rug and it likely won’t be his last.
What I would have done differently is treat the rug before I brought it in the house… no cleaning fee and my rug would still be in perfect condition!
After hanging out in the pit my rug is smell free… although you can still see the stains a bit if you get down on the floor with a flashlight!
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I was just looking at some new area rugs, so this is good info to know.
Your fur babies are too cute to be mad at, especially with such an alluring rug. I’m glad that they all get along now. =)
That’s what I said Lyn! The hubby says I’m too soft at them… They’re too cute! Thanks for stopping by!
So, how would you have treated the rug prior to bringing it in the house? Curious. And what chemical is the rug treated with? Curious about that too. I just unwrapped my Safavieh wool rug 9’6″ x 13’6″, Overstock.com, made in India, and it smells like it’s been sitting out in the woods for a few days. It has a very…hmmm..earthy smell to it? idk if this is something that will disappear in time, or..? idk.
When I had it cleaned the gentlemen who cleaned it said he would have done a rug dip to begin with to break down the checmical on it and keep the pets from ever smelling it. Ever since we did the dip the animals have left it alone but the stains won’t ever come out so we’ve had to move it to a different room where furniture covers the stain 😉 The smell did go away over time. If you’re worried I would call a carpet cleaning shop and ask for their advice. I use Premier Carpet Care in Ozark AL.
My new Safavieh Bella smells so strongly, even after a MONTH and 15 times vacuuming that you can smell it from the doorway on the other side of the house. I have now vacuumed 15 times and EVERY time the canister fills to capacity with gray dust and wool fluff (it must be so deep in the rug another 50 times vacuuming will still shed. The amount of dirt deep in this rug and the smell are shocking but who wants to pay $$$ and try to figure out HOW to ship a 9X12 foot rug this heavy back?
This is very disheartening. I have an 8 foot Safavieh shag rug and another one of the same in a 9 foot square. My older beloved dog who has recently passed, pottied on the round one but the shag is so thick I can’t tell where, but I can smell it. Wondering where I can go to have it cleaned. I live in Macomb, Mi., or if I can clean it myself.
I would look into having it cleaned… we have used a Rug Doctor on this rug (and all of our others!) and while it works perfectly on our other carpets it didn’t touch the Safavieh. It smells fine now that it’s been cleaned and we haven’t had any more potty problems. I’m sorry about your sweet dog passing… it is heartbreaking to lose a beloved family member like that. Good luck!
Did the carpet professional do the dip or is it something we can do ourselves?
Stacey,
Since you have to build a large pit it would be very difficult to do this yourself. I had mine done by the professional rug cleaning dudes! Good luck!
My thoughts are confirmed on my Safavieh rug. I just happened to stumble onto this post, while looking for recommendations on cleaning a rugrunner for my son, which is made by Safavieh.
I also purchased a beautiful Safavieh rug last year, that I absolutely loved. My cat urinated on it. He does not potty on any other rug that I have. I tried cleaning it, and finally gave up. My neighbor suggested that maybe it was something in the rug that attracted the cat. I had not thought of that until he mentioned it last week. And now after reading this post, I firmly believe that this is the case.
Dang! I loved the rug too. When it warms up outside this Spring, I will clean it again, and give it to my son. He does not have pets. No matter what is done to clean the rug, and a urine smell cannot be detected by humans, cats will always go back to it. So, at least my son can have the beautiful rug.