Hardest Rug Of My Life!

November 27, 2023 3:24 PM

There are a zillion videos like this on the internet. And even this same YouTuber has a bunch of videos labeled some variation of The Hardest Rug Ever. But this 43m epic $1 vs $100,000 Black Carpet! | The Hardest Rug of My Life! is one of those things where you wonder, is it ever going to come clean? What will it finally look like? Completely satisfying at the end, and a testament to how a truly well-made carpet can withstand nearly anything.
posted by hippybear (40 comments total)

How on earth does a carpet get that intensely saturated with filth?? Was it buried in a bog for a century or two?
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:51 PM on November 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Saw a thing where someone said rugs that bad were usually flood damage.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:08 PM on November 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah I have the same question. And how could there possibly be so many super high end carpets soaked in mud and grime that there's years worth of content for multiple carpet cleaning channels??
posted by saladin at 4:09 PM on November 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

how could there possibly be so many super high end carpets soaked in mud and grime that there's years worth of content for multiple carpet cleaning channels??

I'm going to guess the increased number of extreme weather events have something to do with this.

Also, extreme partying.
posted by hippybear at 4:26 PM on November 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Is $100,000 the water bill for cleaning the carpet was? I've rarely seen that much fresh water go by in my life, and it's for cleaning what I hope is someone's most prized possession.
posted by majick at 4:36 PM on November 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

But will it tie the room together?
posted by Hairy Lobster at 4:41 PM on November 27, 2023 [8 favorites]

I've been watching these videos for so long that I kind of took their existence for granted. Extreme auto detailing goes into the same category.
posted by 1adam12 at 4:41 PM on November 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Is $100,000 the water bill for cleaning the carpet was?

I'd like to think they have some sort of reclamation/recycling thing going on, because yeah that was a lot of water.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:46 PM on November 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

welp. i guess i just found a new genre of youtube vid to be obsessed with.
posted by capnsue at 4:50 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

i think the intent was "this is a 100k carpet that no one would have paid more than a buck for before seeing what was underneath"
posted by Clowder of bats at 5:10 PM on November 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

My guess was that the channel just takes a… scattershot approach to SEO and this was meant to capitalize on naming trends like “$5 burger vs $500 burger!” or “$100 violin vs $1,000,000 violin!” (See this video’s description.)
posted by supercres at 5:13 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Of the videos I've seen of industrial processes that use water to do... stuff, that's... nothing. It's more than your low-flow toilet at home, but like... ever use a power washer?
posted by tigrrrlily at 5:18 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

My guess was that the channel just takes a… scattershot approach to SEO

Yeah, there's another video with exactly the same title from a month ago. Still satisfying to watch.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:27 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

All my tasks suddenly seem easier..
posted by chronkite at 5:45 PM on November 27, 2023

Youtube dude, no, just... stop. Please stop. It's never gonna not be brown. It's an infinite spawn point of brown. There's no killing all the brown, you just need to throw the whole thing in the dumpster and pretend you've never seen the person when they come to pick it up.
posted by tigrrrlily at 5:59 PM on November 27, 2023

did you see the end of the video? it's actually very beautiful. i have to assume all the brown protected it.

from the video comments, they recycle their water.
posted by Sebmojo at 6:20 PM on November 27, 2023

Why isn't this guy soaked through? I would be after 5 minutes.

I had no idea this was a thing and it's very cool. I know somebody who will watch every minute of this and then maybe watch it again, so I'm going to pass it on to them. Thanks!
posted by ashbury at 6:27 PM on November 27, 2023

That's a beautiful carpet!!
posted by BlueHorse at 6:34 PM on November 27, 2023

Greg_Ace: “How on earth does a carpet get that intensely saturated with filth?? Was it buried in a bog for a century or two?”

"Oddly satisfying" cleaning videos are absolutely right up my alley. I've seen a few carpet cleaning videos where they show the provenance of the dirty carpet. Y'know, used to cover a boat. Rolled up next to a shed. Like that. I presume the videos were meant to be promotional for people who make their living cleaning carpets.

Then I started seeing condensed ones, especially on Instagram, with suspiciously dirty carpets. I have gotten the idea that these people are making their living shooting carpet cleaning videos for TikTok and Instagram. I'm not sure what their Step Two is, but they must have some way of monetizing views.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:14 PM on November 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have a similar suspicion about all the barns full of old cars/motorcyles dotted across the English and American countryside, just waiting to be detailed or started again.
posted by awfurby at 7:40 PM on November 27, 2023

My go-to for dirty rugs gettin' clean is Mountain Rug Cleaning.

I like that nearly all the rugs are smallish and some are moldy and stuff. And the machine has googly eyes.

Iirc, this guy lets everyone know that he'll wash rugs for free, that's how he gets gross rugs
posted by Baethan at 8:08 PM on November 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

How on earth does a carpet get that intensely saturated with filth?? Was it buried in a bog for a century or two?

Let me direct you to my partner channel "Watch us get rugs super dirty." More seriously, why not have the floor on some kind of an incline? I assume that this isn't the most efficient way to wash a dirty carpet, but maybe just the most video-able.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:16 PM on November 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Also, extreme partying.

Conveniently, there didn't seem to be anything on that carpet except fine dirt. No stains from pets barfing, pissing or shitting. Or spilled food. No chemical stains. No rodent or insect damage.

Sorry video guys, cannot subscribe until you get some slope to that damn floor. As a guy whose job it was to hose down the parking lot once a week at one point in my life, slope is your friend. A little maddening seeing the water just sort of pooling, not flowing (without help) to the drain.

Also, this is why I'm not a fan of baths for personally getting clean. That poor rug was sitting in a pool of its own filth for most of the vid. I feel the same is happening when one is sitting in a tub (to be clear, for actual cleaning of a flithy human, not as a relaxing activity when you're already pretty clean).
posted by maxwelton at 9:40 PM on November 27, 2023

In the comments they said the water gets recycled which makes sense because your water bill would be massive otherwise.

As to how - in Turkey a couple of years ago, we were at outdoor restaurant that threw carpets onto the paths between eating areas just piled up for makeshift walk ways and when I asked they said it was customary during dry season to use old carpets for that and then clean them off and bring them indoors during winter. So that amount of dirt sure - although flooding with silt would explain it even better.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 10:27 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

In the comments the youtuber says it was this dirty because the owner used it on the floor of his shop. Dunno what kind of shop it was.
posted by keep_evolving at 10:29 PM on November 27, 2023

In many places in the US it would result in a murderously expensive water and sewage bill if you didn't capture the water and process it somehow.

I wonder if these carpet cleaning channels have the level of "fraud" that is seen in building and restoration channels. Go chuck a rug in a mud hole for a bit and go for it. (But still watching that red just pop was a nice bit of frisson.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:49 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Rug cleaning, car detailing, lawn mowing, power washing, cow hoof trimming (CW: gross!) all stimulate some part of my brain that is very satisfying.
posted by bgrebs at 9:22 AM on November 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

In the comments the youtuber says it was this dirty because the owner used it on the floor of his shop.

Who's tossing $100K rugs in the dirt or using them in a muddy shop?? I dunno, I'm inclined to believe the other commenters here suggesting it was engrimed for YouTube views.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:41 AM on November 28, 2023

Honestly thinking it's natural disaster flooding or sewer overflows or stuff like that. If you have a business that is supplying and cleaning carpet and you have all the equipment required, all it would take is putting some cameras in your shop and doing some editing of your daily work to come up with stuff to post. Thinking they're actually staging these videos where they do even more of the work they already do all day in a more extreme form is a kind of perversion of Occam's razor.
posted by hippybear at 10:36 AM on November 28, 2023

slope would kill your ankles and knees if you're working on it all day. plus i assume the practice of pushing/brushing the water off the rug has a knock-on effect of providing some sort of friction cleaning, physically lifting up dust and moving it to the edges of the carpet.
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 10:43 AM on November 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Rug cleaning, car detailing, lawn mowing, power washing, cow hoof trimming (CW: gross!) all stimulate some part of my brain that is very satisfying.

Add to that list, "sheep shearing" and "Korean women going car camping, cooking good food, and drinking"
posted by mikelieman at 11:45 AM on November 28, 2023

That squeegeeing part was very satisfying.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:27 PM on November 28, 2023

I've always wondered how the fringe manages to stay intact during all these operations.
posted by Archer25 at 1:28 PM on November 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

imagine the smell
posted by scruss at 1:35 PM on November 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

What is amazing to me is that he did not have any of the dye running off. Modern dyes? That being a 100K rug, I am not sure about. There is a Polish rug cleaning place that does excellent videos as well of rug cleaning. Man, I have paid a lot of cash to have rugs washed.
posted by jadepearl at 3:52 PM on November 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

"Korean women going car camping, cooking good food, and drinking"

Until now I had no idea this was a thing. Why it is a thing I have no clue..
posted by y2karl at 4:07 PM on November 28, 2023

Lubuskie Centrum Czystosci is the home of the charming, breakdancing, white wellies-wearing Jacob, for all your professional rug-cleaning watching needs.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 4:24 PM on November 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Not according to your link.
posted by y2karl at 5:00 PM on November 28, 2023

Looks more like... https://www.youtube.com/@LUBUSKIECENTRUMCZYSTOSCI
posted by drewbage1847 at 5:16 PM on November 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

They have a video about their water recycling system, loved this, thanks hippybear!
posted by ellieBOA at 11:01 PM on November 28, 2023 [1 favorite]