Carpet Stain #572
If a child spills red punch. Or V-8 berry blast which is basically vegetables with kool-aid coloring.
First swear. Think about crying. and then continue to let it set overnight because it's too late to clean up before bed and the child being in his bed is what's keeping him alive. At that point getting the steam cleaner out and ready and turned on and cleaned up will take much longer than even your patience can handle. I mean. it was just red punch. the same color as my face at that point. in the middle of the floor.
I do understand why they tell you not to cry over spilled milk. Save the crying for the red punch.
The next day the steam cleaner didn't TOUCH the now set in and dried red stain. Neither did the spot cleaner, borax, tide or MR CLEAN (which is when I gasped and blood filled my head so fast I lost all sense of hearing) Mr. Clean takes sharpie marker out of white carpet for the love of all that's holy..how did it not touch this red stain.
They need to make a Mrs. Clean magic erasers. She would take the color out of the carpet she'd clean it so good. She would probably complain the whole time too. hmm. maybe that's why she never made it passed the first production prototype.
What you need to do is this. Poor water on the stain at hand. Get a rag/towel. It will need to be pretty big or you might need to use several. Lay the towel over the stain. Take a hot iron. I put it on the highest cotton setting. Set iron on towel. let it steam and steam all of that water out. Remove and notice the red circle that formed on the towel and the slight fading on the stain on the carpet. smile really big and giggle realizing that the heat isn't setting the stain like you'd thought and that all is not lost. Repeat moving towel to a clean part. Don't forget to add more water. I didn't use as much water in the beginning and it definitely slowed the process down. repeat repeat repeat repeat.
I did this for close to an hour and it nearly removed all but a little hint of the stain that only I notice now. I had to stop because I was running into my parent teacher conference times. I'm sure that had I stuck to the wet/towel/iron routine....it would have come completely out with not even a sign of the stain.
And there you have it. Tuesdays tips for removing stains that will keep your children safe. :)
