How To Clean Stains Out of Carpet

We’ve all that those frightening moments – you reach out to pick up a glass of wine or a mug of tea and instead of closing your fingers around the glass or handle, you knock it over instead. Before you know it you’ve got a horrible stain all over your carpet.

So what do you do next?

First things first – get up as much as you can as quickly as you can

Grab a roll of absorbent kitchen paper and lay it over the top of the stain to mop up as much as you can. It is also possible to cover it with table salt – it takes up all the moisture and any color too (think red wine!). You can dab it gently to take up more of the spillage but don’t scrub it as you might grind the stain into the carpet rather than removing it. It could also damage the carpet pile.

Have some water to hand too, so you can blot it with some clean water. One tip – make sure whatever you put the water into is 100% clean before using it.

Follow the instructions given when you purchased your carpet

If you still have them, locate the care instructions that came with your carpet. Follow them to the letter and see how the stain fares. Obviously if you had a stain guard solution applied to the carpet you should find the spillage will pool on top rather than soaking in.

Finding a solution for a stain that won’t come out

Don’t worry if you are still left with a stain after you’ve completed the above two steps. There are still plenty of things you can do.

There are two main ways you can go with spot removal. You can either get a shop bought solution to get rid of the stain or you can make your own at home. Vinegar, for example, is known to be a good cleaning agent and it can be used to get rid of some carpet stains too.

The best course of action is to remember that there are different methods for clearing up different stains. For example a glass of wine will require a very different approach to a spillage of olive oil. This is because the first is water based and the second is (obviously) oil based. Google the stain you have and see what the best approach is in that particular situation.

Remember the spot test

One final thing to remember is that you should always test a stain removing solution – whether homemade or otherwise – on a small area of carpet you wouldn’t normally see. This will determine whether or not the color of the carpet will bleed out when treated, or whether it will be noticeable that you have treated it.

As you can see there are plenty of ways to get rid of stains on your carpet, whether they are caused by liquids or anything else. All you need is the right approach.