When dealing with a ruined carpet or rug, it can be hard to determine whether or not you can salvage it. It’s crucial to figure this out, or else you might throw out a good rug or spend time and money trying to save something you can’t fix.

Cleaning Stains

It can be hard to determine whether or not you can fix any given stain without a Los Angeles expert looking at it. The truth is, you can potentially save most rugs. Here’s how to determine if cleaning will work for you based on common stains.

Acidic Stains

Acidic stains include coffee, tea, fruit juice, and red wine. These are common but also infamously tricky to get out.

Red wine and other fruit-based drinks have something called “tannin,” making them stain easily, so clean them as fast as possible. And like all drinks, they’re also viscous liquids, so they soak into carpets fast.

If these are old stains, you have a better bet of cleaning them if you can rehydrate them. But keep in mind that your chances of salvaging an old stain are slim.

To test if a professional Los Angeles cleaning would work, try doing a little work on the stain yourself. Dish soap and vinegar work well on coffee and tea stains, while hydrogen peroxide and club soda work better on juice and wine stains. Keep in mind the risks of DIY cleaning.

Body Fluids

Body fluids include sweat, blood, vomit, urine, and excrement. The worst part of stains like these is the smell they leave. Often, the scent can linger long after the mess itself is gone.

Whatever caused your stain, you should at least try a professional Los Angeles cleaner first. These messes can be biohazards. Regardless of smell, you should get the dangerous parts out first.

Do not use alkaline cleaners or warm water if you’re cleaning blood. Warm water is usually great on stains, but it makes blood stains worse.

Sometimes the smell will still linger after a professional cleaning. Before giving up completely, try using baking soda or a commercial deodorizer. You might also benefit from one more steam cleaning. If the smell still doesn’t come out, you’re likely out of luck.

Oily Stains

Oily stains include cooking oil and fatty foods. They can be tricky, but they’re not impossible to clean.

You can iron these stains out. Never put an iron directly on a carpet or rug – instead, place a towel over the mess and set the iron to a low setting. An iron should be able to melt the oily stains onto the towel.

Baking soda can also soak these stains up. It’s absorbent for any mess like this.

Other Stains

You or a Los Angeles cleaner may run into many other difficult stains. These include things like ink, glue, gum, wax, chocolate, glitter, nail polish, paint, food, bleach, and dyes.

These all vary in difficulty – anything meant to mark a surface, like bleach, paint, nail polish, and dye is next to impossible to remove. You probably won’t remove a stain like this.

Organic stains, like dirt and food stains, can often eventually come out with some effort and experimentation. They can still be tricky, though, and stain removal isn’t guaranteed.

For hard-to-remove stains, start by blotting anything loose. Rinse it with clean water, blotting gently from the outside while working towards the center. If that doesn’t work, try water mixed with dish soap. After that, try water with vinegar. Finally, use vinegar and baking soda.

Throwing It Out

While these stains can be very ambiguous, there are a few signs that you should definitely throw out your rug or carpet. Some things you can’t fix with Los Angeles carpet cleaning, and sometimes your rug is unsalvageable. Here are the signs that it’s time to get rid of your carpet and replace it with something new.

Wear

No amount of cleaning will stop your carpet or rug from looking worn down. If your carpet is starting to look a lot drabber and falling apart, it’s probably in your best interest to replace it.

But if your fibers are loose, a good Los Angeles cleaning can help remove some of this excess. If your fibers are fraying to the point that there are bald patches, though, then you need a new carpet.

Age

Nothing lasts forever, including carpets and rugs. After all, you walk on these surfaces constantly, so they’re bound to feel the passage of time, particularly if they’re high-traffic areas. Feet crush their fibers, cleaners remove their dyes, and they slowly but surely wear out. Even if there’s no major problem, sometimes your carpet is too old, and you need to replace it.

Carpets and rugs last around eight to ten years. If yours is starting to get up in age and the age is starting to show, you might want to replace it.

Padding

Once the padding gets ruined, you can’t hire a Los Angeles cleaner. If it has gotten worn out over time, it needs to be replaced, just like the carpet. But even if it starts to get stained or smelly, there’s not much you can do to clean it. If you’ve ruined your padding, it’s best to replace it than try to fix it.

FAQs

What carpet stains cannot be removed?

You can remove any substance under the right circumstances, so it can be hard to know when to give up. But if you’ve tried everything, your stain likely won’t come out fully.

How do professionals clean carpet stains? 

Los Angeles professionals use steam cleaning machines to clean stains from carpet. This type of cleaning is also known as “hot water extraction.” It fires heated water mixed with mild chemicals into your carpet, dislodging and melting the grime inside.

Do carpet cleaners really clean?

Professional Los Angeles carpet cleaners are great at getting things clean. You can’t remove every stain, but a professional cleaning in Los Angeles is your best bet at getting them out.

Conclusion

It’s impossible to tell whether or not a stain can come out just by looking at it. You may be unsure whether you should put in the time, effort, and money to clean a mess or toss the whole thing. But hopefully, you’re now equipped with the carpet knowledge to make an informed decision on whether or not you should attempt cleaning or give up.