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Best way to clean a stained carpet?


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Ladybug has free rein of the house, even at night and she was apparently sick -- left deposits downstairs and upstairs in the living room -- runny, ugly stuff! (Note do not feed left over turkey soup with rice to the Ladybug!)

 

The downstairs carpet cleaned easily but I didn't discover the living room until just now (somebody -DH- apparently left the play gate open!). What a mess...my light green 1970s deep shag rug...I fear it's permanently stained. It's long overdue for replacing, but I've got 30 people coming for my great-nephew's christening on December 26. We'll never get the carpet removed and replaced by then!

 

I can't get professional carpet cleaner on the phone -- they may still cleaning up after the September floods.

 

Other than dumping bleach on the dark spots, what can I do?

Any and all suggestions are most gratefully received.

 

Liz

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I clean as best I can with a damp cloth and then take a big bath towel and wet 1/2 with the hottest water I can get. I then blot that into the stain with pretty good pressure, my foot, and then blot dry with the dry part of the towel. I've even left a warm damp towel over the stain for awhile, seem to also help draw it into the towel.

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Don't use bleach. You'll never be able to bleach it to match the rest.

 

Can you rent a carpet cleaner? Lots of rental places offer them.

 

We have a barfy cat (a lovely animal otherwise). Stanley Steemer pays visits to us a couple of times a year. It's wonderful what some steam cleaning can do to even the grossest looking blotch.

 

Perhaps the rental people can suggest a product that works well.

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I clean as best I can with a damp cloth and then take a big bath towel and wet 1/2 with the hottest water I can get. I then blot that into the stain with pretty good pressure, my foot, and then blot dry with the dry part of the towel. I've even left a warm damp towel over the stain for awhile, seem to also help draw it into the towel.

 

I second this. I also like Resolve, it works well, especially after you have blotted the area.

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The Oxy carpet spray works a treat. I'll go with anything called Oxy. It gets that awful permanent lipstick out of altar linens. About the only thing it won't get out of my laundry is untreated candle wax.

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While you are totally not supposed to do this, I will dilute Nature's Miracle and run it through my carpet cleaner to treat stubborn stains.

 

I get all that I can out with warm water and paper towels. Then I use the carpet cleaner with the diluted Nature's Miracle.

 

Then I spray straight Nature's Miracle on the spot, and dry with a fan. It usually works.

 

As someone said above, if you don't have a carpet cleaner, you can rent one. Also, I believe they sell rechargeable hand held carpet cleaners relatively cheaply. I used to have one and it worked well. I think it was a Bissell.

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I've applied an oxy-type enzymatic carpet cleaner and it has had some good effect - the stain is now a pale brown. I have a rug shampooer - I'll try that in the morning. I figure if I keep it damp until the carpet guy answers his phone, maybe I have a chance!

 

Poor Ladybug. She's very embarrassed.

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That's why I am switching from carpet to tile! But in the meantime I find cleaning the carpet with the woolite rug scrubber thing (stick?) works well and for a good clean the rental steam cleaners work good.

Pam:

 

One of my customers has all tile in her house. It really looks nice. The only problem with it is that if the dogs throw up on it, it is just slicker than the dickens.

 

But it is just so easy to keep clean. Just use a broom or one of those Swiffer things. And you can keep it reall clean - not like a carpet that may look OK but is really just filthy.

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These are all great suggestions and something is bound to work! I had an earnest conversation with DH

1) the carpet is not worn out -- so he thinks ! Actually it's not that bad -- we rarely use the LR and my mother-in-law who owned the house before us didn't either. It was a "look room". But I really dislike it and have wanted to replace it for years.

 

2) Hardwood floor, which I do want: installation would make too big of a mess, and he's not got the time to install

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If what you have now is carpet, you can easily install the engineered hardwood flooring. Not the laminated stuff that looks like wood, but real wood. It's the same thickness as carpet+pad, so it's an easy transition. And you glue it in. We've done the upstairs hall and the two bedrooms that have become our offices. Took a day to remove carpet, pad, tack strips, and staples and thoroughly vac. Then one or two days to install the floor. We use the 3-inch wide oak pieces. And, as I love jigsaw puzzles, I get to do the piecing. We use a small 'sacrificial" piece to tap the boards tight.

 

Our son-in-law removed the carpet and put in a different form of same thickness but wide board flooring in one daughter's bedroom. Took him a day.

 

We looked into "real" hardwood floors. But the boards are twice as thick so we'd have to undercut the baseboards. All we do now is put in quarter-round when we're done. Also, the traditional hardwood takes a massive tacking machine and sledge thing to install. We're in our 60s. Kneeling and gluing is quite enough for us.

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When Kit was so ill before her surgery, she vomited copious amounts of dark green bile for several days on my light tan carpeting. In one instance, she was frantically heading down the hallway while throwing up, which resulted in a stain that was 12 feet in length. I attacked every stain immediately, no matter what time of day or night. First I blotted, then saturated with Nature's Miracle, followed by my Bissell Pro heat carpet shampooer. I don't use the carpet soap (I find it leaves residue), just the hot water rinse. There are no signs of any stain.

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When Kit was so ill before her surgery, she vomited copious amounts of dark green bile for several days on my light tan carpeting. In one instance, she was frantically heading down the hallway while throwing up, which resulted in a stain that was 12 feet in length. I attacked every stain immediately, no matter what time of day or night. First I blotted, then saturated with Nature's Miracle, followed by my Bissell Pro heat carpet shampooer. I don't use the carpet soap (I find it leaves residue), just the hot water rinse. There are no signs of any stain.

That is pretty much what I do.

First remove as much as you can with paper towels and/or clothes. The sooner you can do this, the better. Then dose liberally with an enzyme cleaner (Nature's Miracle is the original, but there are others on the market too). Finally get out the carpet shampooer -- I do use the carpet shampoo, but it does need the rinse afterwards to finish off the job. Sometimes more than one cleaning is necessary -- when Rhys bach ate a large piece of jaggery (raw sugar), it took several rounds before I finally removed the residue.

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I've not seen Nature's Miracle in my local stores (We're not exactly the crossroads of retail shopping!) I'll have to wait until I get to a pet store in the city.

 

 

Tried Dawn dish soap today on a whim...it actually worked! I think most of the stain is out now...will have to wait until a sunny day to see as it is all starting to blend together (not a bad thing).

 

@ Nancy -- we've looked into the engineered flooring...DH is a contractor and recently installed it in several apt. remodels. Considered it (the kind you see in stores) for kitchen, hall & study but I'm concerned about how it will stand up to three BCs in a high traffic area and with the office chair rolling around (though on a mat). So far, are you satisfied with its durability? (I want to go back into one of those apts. in a year!)

 

Liz

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...and kind of an offshoot of the topic, but useful information to know: I have learned to keep a few paper plates in the house. If I have vomit or soft stool to pick up, by cutting the paper plate in half I have found I can get a lot of the goo off of the floor quickly and with a minimum of grnding it in.

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We each have rolling chairs in our offices. Mine is on a mat - because it moved too much otherwise. Chuck's is just on the floor. Neither has made any marks. I did put either those little dish-like things or felt pads under the other furniture so I can move it around when I need to.

 

The hall was the first we did, so Fergie had plenty of time on it. I do have an "oriental" runner sort of in the middle. Mostly it's been a slip-n-slide for the dog and cat. But no scrapes or scratches. I have to admit that Fergie's toenails were not sharp as we walked her about 5 times a day on the road and in the woods.

 

The stuff our son-in-law put down gets lots of activity. The girls dance a lot - the room has a Murphy bed so they get a lot of performance space. And their hound always joins in - and her walks are not on roads as they live in a state park and walk the paths. That floor is also holding up well.

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Simple Solution with Oxy works great too, and they have one that can go right into a carpet shampooer. It used to be that you could only get it at pet stores, but I think Wal-Mart is now carrying it, I know Meijers (store similar to Wal-Mart in Michigan) does.

 

We have Prego floors in our living room and hallway. It has proved very durable and took less than a day to install.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The "pro" finally came late last week -- he improved what I had done by about half, saying the stain had set. It's passable at least for the holidays. Thanks for your help!

 

(I now have Nature's Miracle in my cupboard and a gate firmly in place to the LR.)

 

Liz

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My Dh had a carpet cleaning company for many years....

He forbids any of the so called cleaning solutions. What he does recommend,

first removing all you can with a scraper of some kind (the paper plate method sounds good) I usually put my hand in a plastic bag and pick up what I can.

Then a hot wet towel to try and pick up the rest.

Then hot water poured over the spot and scrubbed with a stiff brush.

More hot water and lots of towels to lay over the spot and step on till no more moisture can be felt on the towel.

 

After all that then a bit of stain cleaner (he highly recommends Clorox2 the laundry detergent additive) mixed in a spray bottle with hot water lightly spritzed over the stain and more scrubbing with stiff brush.

 

More water poured over spot and stepped on till no moisture.

 

He says anything that you put in the carpet has to come out or else the build up will draw more dirt or leave a spot in it's self.

I've used a shop vac to help get moisture out of the carpet. I just used the hose and kept putting in on the moisture.

 

We have all hardwood. Down in AR I had laminate, LOVED it! It stood up to 5 dogs and DH without a scratch. We were here for a week and I had already scratched my hardwood floor. If I ever do anything about flooring here I will switch back to laminate. Wears much better than real wood for us.

 

I dream of having carpet in my bedroom, I hate hearing the dogs plop on the hard floor. Even tho they have dog beds all over, they choose the hard floor in the middle of the night. I think it's a conspiracy to wake me up!

 

 

 

Glad you got in under control before your company comes!

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