Carpet sludge and the value of denial

The worst part of cleaning my carpets came at the end, when I emptied the dirty water out of the reservoir and saw the thick, black, gooey sludge stuck to the bottom. That stuff was in my RUGS. That I WALK on. In BARE FEET. 

Yuck.

I've had my carpets steam-cleaned before but this time I thought I'd save a ton of money by renting a cleaner and doing it myself, and frankly,  I'm not sure the money I saved can compensate for my hard work, frustration, and pain. For one thing, I had to move a lot of heavy furniture out of the way, first by myself and then with the help of the resident strongmen, who were worth every penny I didn't pay them--but if I'd hired a steam-cleaning company, none of us would have had to lift a finger and I wouldn't have half-dropped a futon on my foot and then hopped around the house in intense pain trying not to bleed all over the very carpet I was cleaning. 

(Side note: who thinks it's a great idea to install wall-to-wall WHITE carpet in the bathroom? If I ever get my hands on the previous owner responsible for that choice, I'll force him to drink the sludge left in the bucket from cleaning that carpet.)

And then of course I had to haul that carpet cleaner full of water all over my house, up and down stairs and through the obstacle course that is my hallway. I worked up quite a sweat pulling that little puppy around--and, like a puppy, it piddled all over the floor and stuck its nose into all kinds of inappropriate places. Bad puppy!

None of that, though, was as awful as cleaning the sludge out of the bottom of the bucket. If I'd hired a steam-cleaning company, all that sludge would have been sucked up into a big truck and hauled away, and I would never have had to face that disgusting residue of my daily life. How much would I be willing to pay for the privilege of denial? 

My feet are happy this morning feeling the fresh fluffiness of clean carpets, but how long can they stay that way? Even now the raw ingredients of carpet sludge are beginning to accumulate unseen right under my feet, yuck. There must be a better way! When will someone finally invent a personal hovercraft?