Cleaning Up Carpet Stains And Why Fast Action Is Important
Anytime you have a nice carpet, it just seems to attract spills. No matter how careful you are, you’ll end up with either peanut butter, red wine, or strawberry cheesecake on your carpet and you’ll need to know what to do in order to take quick action and fix the problem. Now, when I say quick action I mean immediate, and that is the most important part of removing any stain on your carpet, is how fast you get to it, stop the spread, and start the cleanup before anything has dried and set in permanently. If you’re going to be vigilant about catching every stain right away you’ll want to have a basic set of ingredients with which to attack the stain right away.
First of all, always have some towels handy with which to blot up stains like red wine and keep them from spreading, while also extracting as much of the red wine as you can. You’ll also want to have some rubbing alcohol, club soda, white vinegar, carpet stain remover, and some mineral spirits paint remover. A lot of stains are similar in nature to red wine, in that the basic plan is dilute with copious amounts of water, keep blotting up the excess water with dry towels, repeat as necessary until no more wine comes up on to your towel. Club soda is a bit better than water because of the scrubbing action of the carbonation, and if available it should be used instead of water.
Red food stains can be one of the harder stains remove from your carpet, such as ketchup, barbecue sauce, and other similar foods. Begin by taking a butter knife and gently remove any excess of the food, being careful not to force more of the stain deeper into the carpet. Then use a mixture white vinegar and water on the stain, but don’t overdo it. After allowing it to set for about five minutes, blot the area dry with a clean towel, never rub with your towel, just blot. Repeat as necessary until all the stain has been removed.
So as you can see, removing stains from your carpet is not a difficult process, but remember that time is of the essence, plus it is always better to have your carpet cleaning chemicals and towels ready at a seconds notice in order to take action immediately.
