Watch out for overwetting when you are new , my only balls up so far was luckily
on my own bottom step of my stairs , the muck kept coming so i kept cleaning and cleaning and cleaning.
It did get the majority of the muck out but wet it through in a couple of patches and when dry the dreaded browning marks came up , this was some months ago so i did not know what browing was , so i cleaned it again
. It did cause cause to me learn swiftly teqniques for removing browning though.Hopefully to be used infrequently.
I would strongly suggest you are careful on bottom steps and edges of stairs I believe the high traffic can break down the backing/construction of the carpet and you can suck backing up too and think its muck.
Have you got a clear handtool , its easy to say but try and concentrate on the appearance of the carpet not what you can see going up the tool.
Surface cleaning is definatley the way to do it and watch out for overwetting on the edges or missed spray, ensure you extract off the majority of the solution.
Really prevac it well too its worth the extra effort. I use a brush type attachement so i get a lot of dry soil breaking up whilst vaccuming.
All the best
Alex