Menu Close

Category: Cleaning

Dealing with Ugly Stained Carpets! – A DIY Failed Attempt!

Ok so here we go with my next blog post on moving homes and do I have a story for you!

When we got to our place in Bristol we found ugly stains on the carpets. The place was empty except for the bed and some wardrobes. And right in the middle of the living room it seemed like someone had just decided to empty say about one liter of coke on the carpet! I honestly didn’t know what it was! I was quite shocked actually.

But in the end we got it sorted out and what would life be without its little surprises right? Live would be boring! I love a challenge! So here are a few tips I found online that I pieced together into a process and this basically worked for me. And I failed in the end. More on that later 🙁

Empty Spray Bottles

First of all I bought an empty spray bottle as I knew a dried stain needed to be made wet again. Is that how you would describe it? Anyhow, what I mean is the stain is dry and when you add water it brings the liquid out of the carpet a bit. So a spray bottle can do this in a controlled way. You do want to just poor water on the carpet! Please don’t do that!

Baking Soda And Vinegar

Next up I found out that you can use baking soda and vinegar to bring stains out. So what I did was just went to the store and bought some every day vinegar. I put three tablespoons of the stuff into the spray bottle and then filled it to the top with water. Then I sprayed the stain and sprinkled baking soda on the top.

Simple right!

It literally was that simple. I let the carpet dry and then I vacuumed it up. It got most of the stain out.

Call A Professional

At the end of the day when I looked at the stain it was quite bad. I did a very good job but it just seemed like something was off in the end. My friend Paul runs a carpet cleaning company in Newcastle so I gave him a call. He asked me to send him so photos and then he just laughed. I was not expecting that but after I went to his site and looked at the work he does and how clean stains should be after then get done professionally I realised how I messed up.

He actually said I was lucky as my DIY job didn’t ruin the carpet permanently. So a long story short he told me that I needed to call a professional to come out and sort out my carpet. I did exaclty that. Buy hey I tired! And the good part if my husbands work covered the cleaning costs. So I we were happy with that!