Cleaning Microfiber Couches: What everybody got wrong

Posted in DIY

Go ahead….

Search Google for “how to clean a microfiber couch.” Lot’s of results, right?

Go ahead…

Read some of them.

Are you overwhelmed yet?

I was.

The “consensus” was that cleaning with water is bad because it evaporates too slowly–creating more stains than it removes. The solution is to use alcohol. After hours of scrubbing, dabbing, rescrubbing, re-dabbing, and many curses–if you haven’t fainted from inhaling toxic fumes–you’ll transform the couch to like-new-ness.

Maybe. But that’s only if you can make it that far.

Which I never have.

I think I’ve tried about 63 times to use the alcohol method and never had the patience to finish.

I finally said, “screw that! I don’t care what the ‘experts’ on pinterest say. I’m busting out the steam vac!”

So I pulled out this beauty:

I thought, “maybe I should used some specialized chemicals for upholstery or something….nah. I’m too impatient to get this baby clean.”

So I start soaking the crap out of that couch.And scrubbing. And sucking. And scrubbing. And sucking.

Here’s one cushion cleaned (left) and one uncleaned (right):Holy moly! Pinterest lied to me! Google lied to me!

Feeling quite good about my super fast and easy tactic, I tackled the whole couch, soaking the crap out of it and sucking up murky brown liquid.

And a half hour later (+ about 2 hours of drying time), here’s my transformed couch

A-mazing.

So where does this myth come from? I’m guessing it’s either the government or the pharmaceutical companies.

An exciting month!

Posted in Statistics

Hi all!

It has been quite an exciting month. I promise to post soon on cleaning microfiber couches, safety tips for a joiner after my emergency room visit :-), and an old video I made as an undergraduate. In the meantime, for those statistically minded folks, I’m posting a link to my most recent publication:

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/tasmrCgvdJ92eM8fbE7d/full

I’m thrilled to see this finally in print. It has taken three years and about seven rounds and provisions but it’s finally here! The link above will give free access to the first 50 people who access it. Enjoy!