Cleaning and “sanitizing” Can you really disinfect my carpet? You can sanitize effectively and safely. Many consumers buy these products under false or misleading pretense. Words like clean and disinfect or clean and sanitize are used to upsell the tickets. Before going further some definitions are in order. To sanitize means to bring back to a safe level for human occupancy. To disinfect is to kill microorganisms which is impossible to kill all microorganisms on a soft surface like rugs, carpets,upholstery or even tile. he heat and cleaning of high performance hot water extraction provides a health benefit to any indoor structure if done properly and with accepted standards. Also many disinfectants and biocides can negatively impact the stain resistant properties of carpets. There are good sanitizers on the market that we use at Bock’s Steam Star that are thyme based and won’t affect the stain resistance. Additionally they have been approved by the EPA Design for the Environment program.