Spills happen! We’d love to encounter the person who has never accidentally overturned a glass of red wine, open bottle of ketchup or blue-raspberry Italian ice onto someone’s nice, light-colored carpet. Our professional cleaning service in Bucks County specializes in removing the evidence of these embarrassing accidents, but perhaps you’d like to give it a shot yourself. We’ve compiled a few of our favorite tips for getting stubborn stains out of carpets, whether they’re the result of an exaggerated gesture at a dinner party or just come from the regular wear and tear of daily life.
1) Blot your stains rather than rubbing at them. This is definitely a time-consuming technique, but with the help of chemical cleaning agents and solvents, can be made less so. Rubbing at a stain may logically seem like a faster way to detach any pigmentation from carpet fibers, but will actually spread the staining substance both deeper and further outward. The best approach to take is to use a cleaning substance appropriate to the color and material of your carpet and gently blot at the stain with a little pressure, moving to a new, clean part of your cloth every few blots. Be sure to blot from the outside of the stain inwards, so the stain won’t spread.
2) Keep shaving cream, soda water and vinegar in your carpet-cleaning arsenal. You probably have most of these items around anyway, so why not put them to use before investing in new cleaning supplies? Shaving cream can be applied right to the stain and allowed to set for a half hour, after which you can blot it, with the stain, right off. Similarly, club soda can be blotted onto a stain with a cloth to remove it; a mixture of one part vinegar and one part water can be used to the same effect.
3) Get your stains before they have a chance to dry, but don’t give up on old carpet stains. Your chances of completely removing a stain are much better if you get to it before it has a chance to dry and fully integrate itself into carpet fibers. That being said, don’t throw in the towel if you encounter an old stain – many stains can be removed even if they seem to have become a fixture. Good old baking soda and vinegar may do the trick in many cases; try spreading baking soda over the expanse of the stain, then spray down with a mixture of 50/50 vinegar/water. Let it sit for a few hours, then scrub it with a stiff brush. Vacuum that up on carpet mode, and enjoy your fresh “new” carpet!
4) Get your carpet deep-cleaned. Deep-cleaning a carpet more or less fills carpet fibers with cleaning solution, agitates the material, then uses water pressure to extract the solution – along with dirt, grime and stain-causing substances. There’s simply no way to remove stains as thoroughly through blotting alone. You can invest in a deep carpet cleaner, but why not let the pros take care of it? At Minch Professional Cleaning, our deep cleaning services are affordable and take away the time and stress involved in doing it yourself.
