One stain on your carpet gives your floor a whole different look. That’s the main reason you don’t want it there. The question is how do you make sure it doesn’t turn your carpet into a horror movie? The truth is, cleaning a carpet needs to be done carefully since any mistake might give you a reason to have a new carpet installed. What you mustn’t forget is that not all stains do the same damage. There are those that will get absorbed into your carpet depending on the time you take to respond to it.
There are those that won’t get absorbed but will stick to your carpet making them harder to scrub off and lastly, there are those that will just lay there waiting for you to step on them so that they can do wonders. The good news is, you don’t need to sweat it. With a few simple tricks, you can easily do away with any stain no matter how disturbing it can be. To get a clear understanding what this means, here are some seven simple tips that you’ll find useful when dealing with any stain on your carpet.
- Dealing with pet poop, coffee, and other foods: Use a little club soda
It doesn’t matter what type of products you chose for your stain. It can either be, dish soap or club soda. What you must remember is that your carpet needs to dry faster. Unless you are planning to throw the whole carpet into a drying machine, you don’t have to apply too much of the cleaning product for many reasons. One of them is that cleaning products are liquids, meaning that they will automatically wet your carpet. If your carpet doesn’t dry faster, you risk getting more stains on it.
For stains such as coffee, you are required to blot the coffee stain and rinse with a little club soda. You can also brush off the stain using a mixture of soap and water then finalize with rinsing. This also applies to pet poop and many other foods.
- Dealing with nail polish: Use clear colored acetone and then do some blotting instead of scrubbing
Scrubbing is undoubtedly one of the most popular remedies for dealing with dirt on the carpet. However, when dealing with potentially stubborn stains, blotting has proven to be one of the effective tricks of dealing with most sticky stains. Experts advise that you need to absorb any sticky or messy stain with a wet cloth. This will help reduce the amount of liquid on the stain and prevent it from spreading all over your carpet. Instead of scrubbing, you are required to pat lightly on the stain or use a stroking motion.
This applies to different types of stains such as make ups, coffee and more. It also applies for stains such as nail polish. When dealing with a nail polish, you need to dip a cloth or a sponge into an acetone with clear color; you can then use it to blot the nail polish stain.
- Dark colored foods: Do some scraping follow up with one part of soap in four parts of water
Don’t rush with the soaking and scrubbing. Analyze that stains fast. Most of the time you’ll find out that not all parts of the stain got in your carpet. To make everything much easier, you need to scrape the parts of the stain that didn’t get into the carpet off before dumping the whole thing.
This applies mostly to stains such as Chocolate, greasy or fatty foods and more. You can do the scraping with the knife or any other sharp object. For stains like chocolate, you can follow up the scraping with mixing a soap and water. Wet the sponge or cloth. Wipe off the stain carefully by patting. Lastly, rinse with warm water.
- White vinegar for greasy foods
For greasy or fatty foods, you are required to follow up the scraping with layering a paper towel on the remaining part of the stain. Using an Iron set to low heat, iron over the paper towels. This will help in lifting the grease. You are then required to mix, soap, white vinegar and lukewarm water using a sponge and lastly, do the rinsing.
- Use some ice for gum stains
As much chewing gum might appear to be fun, you must consider them as potential threats to your carpet. It is among the stickiest stains you can come across, and the worst part is, it can’t be easily absorbed by many liquids available for stain removal. The good news is, unlike any other stain, gum stains don’t need special products to do away with. What you need are some ice and a towel. Ensure that the ice is properly wrapped into the towel place it onto of the gum and then follow up with some scraping.
- Ensure that the carpet is dry
Molds like wet places and wet carpets aren’t exceptional. Leaving a wet carpet on a floor might attract harmful pathogens you don’t want messing up your healthy home environment. A wet carpet will also attract more stains. So, it is advisable that, before you put it back, you must ensure that it is properly dried. What you need to do is blot it with a towel when done with cleaning. You can then use a hair dryer or anything that functions as a fan to speed up the drying process.
- Don’t waste even a minute when dealing with stains that will get absorbed quickly
Not all stains do the same damage. If the stain that gets into contact with you carpet gets absorbed easily like coffee and other liquids, then the worst thing you can do is, postponing the cleaning.
Unless you are looking for a challenge, you mustn’t give the stain time to settle into your carpet. Why? Simple, it will give it time to get absorbed and the worst part is it will dry making it harder to remove than dealing with it immediately when it comes into contact with your carpet. This applies to stubborn stains such as coffee, make ups and more.
In summary, doing away with stains on the carpet is among the hardest task you might come across especially when dealing with stains that get absorbed quickly into your carpet. However with few simple tricks mentioned above, you can easily do away with any stain despite how stubborn it might be. What is required of you is to be patient enough to realize the type of stain that gets on your carpet. You are then required to find out the best remedy that you’ll undoubtedly find on the above-mentioned tricks. Choose the right liquid to use on your stain, doing it slowly and carefully and lastly, pay attention to what’s happening to your carpet when you are doing the cleaning.