Keep in mind that every carpet cleaning company has a maximum square footage allowed per area cleaned. It is important to ask this question when getting a quote simply because if your living room is 450 square feet and a carpet cleaning company has a limit of 100 square feet per area, then when the carpet cleaning company arrives at your residence to clean your living room they are going to consider this as 5 rooms. This is simply because the living room exceeds their maximum square footage per area by 4.5 times.