Five Eco-Friendly Stain Removal Tips for Carpeting

Today Ben Clark is taking over the blog to give you five eco-friendly spot removal tips. I would definitely recommend trying out these options before breaking out the harsh chemical strain removers. 

Hi, my name is Ben Clark. I am the owner of the world’s greatest company (at least I think so). I own Kern Carpet Cleaning. Additionally, I am a dad. This means that I am either cleaning up messes at work or I am cleaning up messes at home.

I think we can all agree that we envy our kids’ limitless-supply of energy. However that same energy often results in spills, stains and food covered floors. Today, I am going to talk about five eco-friendly carpet cleaning secrets. These tricks will show you how to use common household items to clean stains out of your carpet.

1. Baking Soda

Let’s start with one of my favorites:  Baking Soda. Most of you grew up with this in your spice cabinet. Personally, my mom kept Baking Soda in the refrigerator, but that is beside the point. This pasty powder can be used to remove some of your toughest stains.

Start by mixing baking soda and water together until you form a thick paste.  Massage the paste into your carpet and let the mixture sit for a few minutes. After the paste has had time to soak into your carpet, use a tooth-brush to scrub the stain.  This will work on most stains.

2. Cornmeal

If you are anything like me, you won’t use this method. I happen to LOVE corn muffins, so naturally, I wouldn’t dream of pouring cornmeal all over my carpet. However, for those of you who are less-attached to the worlds most delicious muffin, this will work wonders on carpet stains. This can even remove grease stains.

Use cornmeal by simply pouring all over a grease stain. Let the meal sit for 30 minutes. Next, vacuum up the mixture and scrub out any remaining stains with soap and water.

3. Table Salt

Salt is similar to corn meal as in it absorbed stains. This works best for liquid stains like spilled juices. Soon after your child spills their fruit punch on your white carpet,  pour salt over the stain.Wait 15-30 minutes to let the salt absorb most of the stain, after which you can vacuum up the salt particles.

If you are able to see remaining of the stain, you can repeat this two or three times. Lastly, you can use soap and water to scrub-out any remaining spots.

4. Vinegar

Vinegar is admittedly pungent, but ironically it works miracles on smelly carpets. If you have a stain that smells (like urine), pour vinegar over it.

I recommend you pour a healthy dose on your stain and let it sit in your carpet for 20 minutes. After the vinegar has had enough time to interact with your stain, soak up the vinegar with dry towels.

Lastly, wait until your floor is 100% dry and use a vacuum to suck up the particles that will have formed on top of your carpet. This will remove most smelly stains. There are some, like cat urine, that will need something specially created to fight off cat urine bacteria.

5. Blot and Keep it clean

Remember that stains are typically not set as soon as they touch your carpet. More often, they are set when people mishandled them. The first thing you should do to a stain is blot it with a dry towel. Try to remove as much liquid as possible from your carpet without pressing the stain deeper into your floor.

Secondly, use dye-free, unscented soap and warm water. This is not only eco-friendly but it is also better of your carpets. You don’t want to a colored soap into your stain because that will make it harder to remove. An unscented bar of soap can be used to remove basic stains out of your carpet.

I hope these tips will help you keep your house stain free.

Enjoy,

Ben Clark

 Leave a comment below if you know of any eco-friendly carpet cleaning tricks.