Top tips for cleaning mud & other wet weather messes

Winter: a time for curling up on the couch, wrapping yourself in blankets and trying your hardest to ignore the mess that’s slowly building up on every surface in your home.

Unfortunately, with the cold comes rain, and with rain comes mud. Tracked in by dirty shoes and paws, mud builds up very quickly during the cooler months and can be tricky to stay on top of. Because we know how annoying this kind of wet weather mess can be to clean up, we’ve compiled all our best advice on the matter.

Here are some of our best tips for getting mud off your floors and furniture, along with the products we’d recommend to get the job done.

Whether you’ve just spotted muddy pawprints on the living room carpet or your shoes are trailing dry, flaky dirt through the house, dried mud is a little easier to clean than a fresh, wet mess.

The simplest way to rid your house of dried mud is to vacuum it up, but there are a couple of things to consider first. The amount of mud you’re dealing with will determine the best cleaning method, as will the surface the mess is affecting.

For small amounts of dry mud, a quality stick vacuum will get the job done quickly, but for the most effective result possible we recommend doing some prep work. Running a broom or brush over the area will help to break up clumps of dry mud and make them easier to vacuum up.

If you’ve vacuumed up as much dry mud as you can but your carpet still looks a little worse for wear, it might be time bust out a carpet shampooer.

Deep-cleaning carpet washers like the Bissell CleanView® PowerBrush Carpet Shampooer or Wertheim SE2000 Extractor Carpet Shampooer are designed to shampoo your carpet just like you shampoo your hair. The combination of a rotating brush and a carpet shampoo solution works to scrub, lift and remove any deeply embedded dirt or mud to leave your carpets fresh and hygienic.

The automatic drying function included in models like the Wertheim SE2000 or the Hoover SMARTWASH+ Automatic Carpet Washer is also a huge help during the winter months.

It’s vital that floors are dried properly after a shampoo session, as any moisture left in the fibres can cause mould growth. When it’s freezing cold or raining, it’s not always possible to leave the windows open for hours while your carpets dry, so a machine that cuts down your dry time can be a life saver.

One benefit of hard floors is that there’s no fibres for mud and other liquid messes to get caught in or soak into. So, there’s a chance the broom and vacuum routine is all you’ll need to deal with dried mud.

If your hard floors need a little more TLC, however, you can follow up with a mop – or, if you’d rather not mop manually, a steam mop or hard floor cleaner.

A steam mop like the Bissell PowerFresh™ Slim Steam Mop is perfect for dealing with that last bit of stubborn mud your vacuum couldn’t lift. These cleaners work by breaking down dirt, grease and grime with the power of hot steam, so they’ll make quick work of thin layers of mud.

If you’re looking to cut down your cleaning time and cover the vacuuming and mopping steps in one go, it’s worth looking into a 2-in-1 cleaner like the Sauber Steam & Vacuum SV-100 Multi-Surface Cleaner or Tineco FLOOR ONE S3 Hard Floor Cleaner.

Both these cleaners are designed to vacuum and mop simultaneously, with the former using steam and the latter using water and solution. The Sauber model can also be used as just a vacuum or just a steam mop, so you can run it quickly over the mud first in vacuum mode to pick up the bulk of the dry mess, then follow it up with a steam without switching machines.  

Dry mud is easier to clean than wet mud, largely because most vacuums aren’t designed to deal with wet mess at all. Unless you’re using a vacuum that’s specifically designed to tackle dry and wet mess – like some commercial models or the Hoover Wet & Dry Hand Vacuum for quick pickups – you’ll have to wait for mud to dry before you can suck it up.

If, for whatever reason, that’s not an option, there are still ways to deal with fresh, wet mud before it spreads throughout your home.

A carpet shampooer and a cleaning solution designed for carpets will make short work of wet mud, but to avoid tracking large amounts of mud across the floor or clogging your machine we advise getting as much mud off the floor as possible first. Just take a cloth, rag or paper towel and wipe the area to pick up the majority of the mud, then use your shampooer to deal with the muck caught in the carpet fibres.

After deep-cleaning, it’s always a good idea to empty and rinse your shampooer’s tank, then run it over the carpets again using just clean water. Rinsing your floors like this will ensure all the solution and any leftover dirt is sucked right up, preventing future dust from sticking to the fibres.

If you’re dealing with wet mud on hard floors, wipe up as much of the mud as possible using a cloth or paper towel then bring out the mop and bucket.

Alternatively, opt for a hard floor cleaner like the Tineco FLOOR ONE S3 that can vacuum and mop at the same time. Do the same initial wipe up, then use your hard floor cleaner to mop up the rest, leaving the floor sparkling clean and dry.

Of course, floors aren’t the only surfaces in the house that attract mud. Whether you’ve got pets running around or you’ve just unwittingly sat on furniture in muddy clothes, sometimes it’s necessary to de-muddify your upholstery.

Fortunately, many carpet shampooers are equipped with handheld tools to deep-clean furniture, like the Hoover SMARTWASH+ Automatic Carpet Washer. Clean your upholstery in the same way you’d clean your carpet – brushing or wiping up excess mud, then going over it with the shampooer.

If you’re not looking to bring a full-sized shampooer into your home, the Bissell Little Green® Portable Spot & Stain Carpet Cleaner is specifically designed for this kind of spot-cleaning. You can also opt for a totally tech-free approach and use a stain-removal spray like the Enzyme Wizard Carpet & Upholstery Spray Cleaner, which keeps working its magic on tricky stains or messes up to seven days after application.