# How do I clean our gross wall-to-wall carpet?



## mlec (May 29, 2005)

We're in a rental that had a gross carpet to begin with. It's very light-beige, and has many many stains. After being here for a year w/ two toddlers, it's even more gross and stained. Mostly food stains, but nosebleeds, pee, chalk, paint, and shoe traffic have made it substantially worse. How do I clean it? There's even stuff crusted in places.

I know, I'm disgusting.







:


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## sapphire_chan (May 2, 2005)

You can reduce the ick by taking a scrub brush and various stain removers (like isopropyl) to the carpet. Maybe Oxyclean or an enzyme remover.

Or buy/borrow a steam cleaner (not a store rental, they're too worn out to be really good on stains, IME.)

I don't know that you'll be able to get it actually spotless though.


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## Vancouver Mommy (Aug 15, 2007)

We rent as well and have beige carpet. We have it professionally cleaned once ever 10-12 months. I try to use companies that use natural cleaners and no solvents, but I constantly worry about the residue. Recently I bought a Little Green Steam Machine and I clean spots with just water and vinegar, or a little bac-out. Carpet (all carpet) is disgusting. I can't wait to live in a completely carpet-free environment.


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## shelbean91 (May 11, 2002)

Hoover has a very basic carpet shampooer that runs about $150. It's got a clean water and detergent tank and a dirty water tank. Run it like a vacuum. You can mix oxyclean in it- that takes up just about anything, including somethign bright purple that my sister had spilled under her bed when she was staying with me- didn't find it until she moved.

Also, if you boil water on the stove, add oxyclean, pour it over the stain and scrub, then suck it up. This worked to get up dog pee, among other things. We had a rental and cleaned the carpets with this shampooer almost every weekend and when we got our own house, with brand new (bottom of the line) carpet- using this cleaning process helped carpet designed to last 3-5 years make it 9 years.


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## mlec (May 29, 2005)

Thank you for the replies!







: I appreciate the good ideas and support.

Boiling oxyclean makes it more effective?

VM, yes, yes, yes all carpet is gross! How can I keep two children under 5 from spilling/dropping bits of food at every meal?!

I also got our ducts cleaned today and the guy said they were "horrendous". I mentioned that I think smokers used to live in this long-time rental, and he said, "No, the stuff would've been magenta. It was just grey...it's from the carpet."

Some day....I will have hard wood floors!


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## shelbean91 (May 11, 2002)

It's not so much boiling the oxyclean,but the super hot water that helps. We never lost a deposit on any rental for the carpets and our boy dog at the time loved to mark certain spots, no matter what we did.


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## mlec (May 29, 2005)

Shellbean, hmmm...I see. I never thought of using hot water for carpet stains, even though I use it for laundry stains all the time...duh!

My little "pet" is a poorly EC'd toddler who doesn't wet her pants...just takes 'em off and pees on the carpeted floor.

Is Oxyclean relatively non-toxic?


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## shelbean91 (May 11, 2002)

I don't think oxyclean is highly toxic, but I do use 'regular' household cleaners quite often, so Im not the best to ask.


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