out darn spot

out damn spot, out i say.

the Before photo

the way it goes with rented units, whenever your tenant vacates the unit, you're bound to encounter every situation imaginable - child-decorated walls, hobs that literally haven't seen the light of day, junk left behind enough to fill a lorry (bak kata bibik), roach-infestation (this is the worst), and of course, spill stains. my carpet (as you see in photo) spotted a very obvious stain, its origins i am unsure of. so instead of paying a bomb to get it cleaned professionally, i decided to take it upon myself to get the stain out.

i purchased one of those commercial carpet cleaners from Ace Hardware. there were quite a number to choose from, so i randomly grabbed one of the shelf. i chose the Spot Shot Instant Carpet Stain Remover. you should clean stains immediately before they set, but they mentioned on the label that it could work on older stains, so this was a win compared to the other products (apart from the price of course. cleaning agents are pricey!).

i also googled 'how to remove old carpet stain'. i got an interesting number of results, but most of them recommended more or less the same household ingredients to attack ancient stains:

- baking soda,
- dish washing liquid,
- vinegar.

baking soda and vinegar

i had nothing to lose. the stain was visible at the bottom part of the carpet anyway. don't ask me what's the difference between the normal vinegar and distilled vinegar, i simply grabbed the cheapest option.

i tried cleaning the stain with the commercial carpet cleaner first. i was supposed to spray the solution onto the stain, let it set first then only start dabbing the carpet with a white cloth to absorb the stain. i guess a got a little carried away, i kinda saturated the carpet with the solution, bahahahahah.

i didn't see any immediate difference to the stain, so i proceeded with the vinegar mixture. like cooking, i ended up agak2-ing (if there ever is a word lol) the amount of ingredients to mix together - a tablespoon each (or probably more) of baking soda, dish washing liquid, vinegar and four times water.

i sprinkled (a LOT OF) baking soda onto the stain first, supposedly to let it absorb into the stain. then i dipped my trusty Rubbermaid scrubbing brush into the solution and started attacking the stain. some people claims the mixture began to create suds, but mine didn't really become soapy because of the baking soda, and i ended up dumping the whole vinegar-mixture onto the carpet until it seeped through the other side, hahahaha. better is more, don't you think? =D

when you're finally done scrubbing, you take a clean washcloth to blot the carpet until all the liquid on the carpet is absorbed. i practically drenched the carpet, remember, so guess how much blotting was needed?

once you think you're done (or if you give up flexing your hand muscles), you can choose to repeat the whole process or simply let it dry and see whether your ingenious methods work or not. i got impatient and used my Rainbow vacuum cleaner (since 2011, our most useful purchase to-date, if you ignore the price tag that came with it) to help with the air-drying process, and then left the carpet near my unit windows to let it continue drying (my windows get abundant morning sun daily).

here's the After:

the After photo. pretty impressive

i would say that i did a pretty impressive job, if i may say so myself. bahahahhahahaha. close up i wouldn't say that the stain disappeared completely but it's far less noticeable now, and you won't really notice it unless you purposely take a closer look. anyway, that's fine with me. like i said, right side up you don't even notice the stain anyway.

#lilocleans #lilocleansnever #purposelythrewthathashtagin