Carpet Stain Removal Chart, by Stain and by Fibre

Two problems together: anthocyanin pigment, which is a pH-sensitive dye, and tannin, which binds to fibre and leaves the shadow after the red is gone.

Method

1. Blot immediately with a dry white cloth. Press, do not rub.
2. Flush with cool water and keep blotting. Most of a fresh spill leaves with dilution alone.
3. Follow with a mildly acidic treatment for the tannin. Judge progress by colour transferring to your cloth, not by what the wet carpet looks like.
4. Rinse and blot until the cloth comes up clean, then dry quickly with air movement.

What not to do

• ×Do not pour salt on it. It absorbs a little liquid and leaves hygroscopic salt in the pile that holds moisture and attracts dirt, and Calgary carpet already carries winter chloride.
• ×Do not panic at a colour shift. Anthocyanins are pH indicators and turn blue-grey in alkaline conditions, which looks like damage but says nothing about whether the pigment is leaving.
• ×Do not reach for hydrogen peroxide as a first move. It works, and on a mid-tone or dark carpet it also lightens the fibre permanently.

Tannin pigment, plus milk protein and fat if it was not taken black. Three unrelated chemistries in one spill, which is why one product half-works.

Method

1. Blot up as much liquid as possible with a dry white cloth.
2. Lift the fat first with a trace of detergent solution, if there was milk or cream in it.
3. Treat the protein next, with an enzyme product, if there was dairy.
4. Finish with a mildly acidic rinse for the tannin. This order matters, because an alkaline treatment applied first can set the tannin permanently.
5. Rinse thoroughly and dry fast.

What not to do

• ×Do not use an alkaline general-purpose cleaner as the first step. It sets tannin.
• ×Do not ignore the dairy. Pigment removal does nothing about the sour smell from casein breaking down, and nothing about the fat that will collect dirt for weeks.
• ×Do not keep rinsing with Calgary tap water when a brown shadow persists. Calcium binds with tannin and surfactant into an insoluble deposit, so more hard water adds mineral rather than removing stain.

Haemoglobin, a protein that coagulates with heat and whose iron oxidises to rust brown as it dries.

Method

1. Use cold water only, and start immediately. Heat sets protein the way heat sets an egg.
2. Blot with a cold, damp white cloth, rotating to clean sections as colour transfers.
3. Use an enzyme treatment for anything beyond a fresh small spot, since enzymes break protein down rather than merely diluting it.
4. Rinse cold, blot dry, and move air over it.

What not to do

• ×Never use warm or hot water at any stage, including the rinse.
• ×Do not keep reapplying hydrogen peroxide after the foaming stops. The foam is catalase in the blood breaking the peroxide down, and once that is spent you are only wetting the carpet.
• ×Do not let peroxide sit on a mid-tone or dark carpet. It is an oxidiser and will lighten the fibre permanently, trading a brown mark for a pale one.

Urea, urobilin pigment, and uric acid, which crystallises. Those crystals keep releasing odour as they absorb humidity, which is why the smell returns in damp weather.

Method

1. Blot fresh accidents heavily. Volume removed now is odour avoided later.
2. Flush with cool water and extract, then repeat. Urine spreads wider in the underpad than it appears on the surface.
3. Use an enzyme treatment specifically, and give it the dwell time on the label. Enzymes are the only common treatment that breaks uric acid down.
4. Dry thoroughly. Residual moisture in the pad is what turns one accident into a recurring smell.

What not to do

• ×Do not use an ammonia-based cleaner. Urine already smells of ammonia, and to a dog that reads as a marked spot, which invites repeat accidents in the same place.
• ×Do not rely on deodorising sprays or baking soda alone. Masking does not touch uric acid crystals, and the smell returns whenever indoor humidity rises.
• ×Do not assume a surface clean resolved it. If urine reached the underpad, surface treatment cannot, and the odour will come back.

Protein and food matter combined with stomach acid, so it is both a staining problem and an active fibre and dye risk while it sits.

Method

1. Remove solids first with a spoon or dull scraper, working inward.
2. Blot the liquid, then flush with cool water to dilute the acid quickly. Time matters here because the acid is doing damage while it sits.
3. Apply an enzyme treatment for the protein.
4. Rinse, extract and dry fast.

What not to do

• ×Do not leave it to deal with later. Stomach acid causes dye loss, and once the colour is gone from the fibre no cleaning brings it back.
• ×Do not use hot water, since the protein component sets the same way blood does.

Oily soil that needs either solvent action or surfactant micelles to lift, plus heat. Invisible at first and darkens over weeks as it collects dry soil.

Method

1. Absorb what is on the surface with cornstarch or baking soda, leave it to draw the oil, then vacuum.
2. Use a solvent-side spotter, or a very small amount of detergent solution.
3. Rinse with clear water repeatedly and blot until a pressed white cloth comes up with no slipperiness or foam.
4. Dry with air movement.

What not to do

• ×Do not use dish soap generously. It is designed to be rinsed under a running tap, and carpet has no tap. The surfactant left behind has an oil-attracting end that goes on collecting soil, which is why the mark returns weeks later larger than the original.
• ×Do not skip the rinse. On a grease stain the rinse matters more than the cleaner.
• ×Do not keep re-treating with tap water in the south of Calgary. Anionic surfactant plus hard water calcium forms an insoluble soap, the same reaction as a bathtub ring, and each attempt adds more deposit.

A hydrocarbon solid that melts around 46 to 68°C, plus dye if the candle was coloured. The dye is a separate problem from the wax.

Method

1. Let it harden completely, then break it up and lift as much as possible with a dull edge.
2. Cover with a plain paper bag or cloth and use an iron on its lowest setting, no steam, kept moving, to draw the wax up into the paper.
3. Change to a clean section of paper often, and stop as soon as wax stops transferring.
4. Treat the oily film left behind with a solvent-side spotter, since wax residue attracts soil exactly like grease.

What not to do

• ×Do not turn the iron up. Paraffin needs very little heat and synthetic carpet softens far closer to that than people assume. Overshooting fuses and glazes the fibre, and melted carpet cannot be repaired, only replaced.
• ×Do not scrape with a knife or a stiff brush, particularly on looped carpet, where a cut loop can run across the room.
• ×Do not stop at the visible wax. The invisible oily film is what turns the spot grey over the following months.

Dye suspended in an oil or glycol-based paste, which is why water does nothing and solvent is required.

Method

1. Dampen a white cloth with isopropyl alcohol at 70 per cent or higher. Do not apply it to the carpet directly.
2. Press and hold briefly, then blot, rotating to a clean part of the cloth each time.
3. Work from the outer edge of the mark inward, to contain the boundary.
4. Repeat patiently, expecting ten or more cycles, then rinse lightly with cool water and blot dry.

What not to do

• ×Do not use hairspray. That advice is decades out of date. Older formulations were mostly alcohol and the alcohol did the work, while modern hairspray is largely polymer resin, which stays in the fibre and attracts soil around the mark you failed to remove.
• ×Do not use much solvent. If the carpet looks wet, the dissolved ink is already travelling outward and a dot is becoming a blotch.
• ×Do not rub. It spreads dye sideways and abrades fibre, and abraded fibre holds colour more stubbornly.

Solvent-based dye engineered to resist water and bond to surfaces. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Method

1. Test isopropyl alcohol or a dedicated solvent spotter on a hidden area first.
2. Apply to a cloth, blot from the outside in, and rotate to clean cloth constantly.
3. Prefer many light applications over one aggressive attempt.
4. Rinse and blot dry when colour stops transferring.

What not to do

• ×Do not expect full removal, and be wary of anyone who promises it. Partial reduction is the normal outcome and a shadow usually remains on light carpet.
• ×Do not escalate to strong oxidisers on your own. They can remove the marker and the carpet's own dye at the same time, leaving a pale patch that is more visible than the original mark.

Not ink at all. A dry thermoplastic powder with pigment and iron oxide, designed to be fused onto paper with heat.

Method

1. Do not touch it. Vacuum first, with the hose end held slightly above the pile so you lift powder by airflow.
2. No beater bar, no brushing, no pressing down.
3. Work from the outside inward.
4. Only after all loose powder is gone, treat any remaining mark with cold water.

What not to do

• ×Never wet it first. Water or solvent turns loose powder sitting on the carpet into a plastic and pigment paste bonded into the fibre, and that change is effectively irreversible.
• ×Never use heat, warm water or a steam cleaner. Toner is formulated to fuse when warm.
• ×Do not vacuum without sealed filtration. Toner particles are a few microns across, so a vacuum without a HEPA filter collects it at the floor and exhausts it into the room, spreading the problem over a wider area and into the air.

Sodium chloride, which dries to a white crystalline bloom, or calcium chloride, which is deliquescent and stays permanently damp. Calgary also spreads a traction mix that is 97 per cent six-millimetre gravel.

Method

1. Vacuum thoroughly while completely dry, with multiple slow passes from different directions.
2. Flush with warm water rather than spot-treating. Salt is highly soluble, so this is a dilution problem.
3. Add mild acid, roughly one part white vinegar to five parts warm water, to neutralise the alkaline bloom.
4. Extract far more than feels necessary, then dry quickly.

What not to do

• ×Do not wet it before vacuuming. Wetting grit-laden carpet turns abrasive particles into a slurry driven deeper into the pile and backing, where they keep cutting fibre for years.
• ×Do not wet it without the means to extract it. You will dissolve the salt and move it into the underpad, from where it wicks back to the surface as it dries. That is why the white haze keeps coming back.
• ×Do not expect cleaning to fix abrasion. Gravel-worn, permanently flattened entryway fibre does not stand back up.

Mostly mineral particulate rather than a chemical stain, which makes it the easiest thing on this chart and the most commonly mishandled.

Method

1. Let it dry completely. This feels wrong and it is the single most useful instruction here.
2. Break up the dried soil and vacuum it out thoroughly.
3. Only then treat any remaining discolouration with a detergent solution.
4. Rinse and blot.

What not to do

• ×Do not attack it while wet. Rubbing wet mud drives fine particulate deep into the pile and backing and spreads a small mark into a large grey one. Almost all of it vacuums out once dry.
• ×Do not scrub. Mineral grit under pressure is an abrasive against your own carpet fibre.

Fat, milk protein, sugar and tannin from cocoa solids, so it needs the same layered approach as a milky coffee.

Method

1. Let it harden, then lift the solids with a dull edge.
2. Treat the fat with a small amount of detergent or a solvent-side spotter.
3. Treat the protein with an enzyme product.
4. Finish mildly acidic for the cocoa tannin, then rinse and dry.

What not to do

• ×Do not use hot water, since the protein sets.
• ×Do not treat it as a simple brown stain. Removing the colour while leaving the fat behind gives you a spot that darkens again over the following weeks.

Nitrocellulose polymer with pigment, dissolved in a solvent. Once the solvent evaporates the polymer is a hardened plastic film locked around the fibres.

Method

1. Blot fresh spills immediately without spreading, using a dry cloth from the outside in.
2. Test acetone-free nail polish remover on a hidden area first.
3. Apply to a cloth in small amounts and blot repeatedly, rotating to clean cloth.
4. Rinse and blot dry.

What not to do

• ×Do not use acetone on carpet without testing. Acetone dissolves several synthetic fibres outright, including acetate and some blends, and can melt or craze the carpet itself. You can put a hole in the floor covering.
• ×Do not flood it. Solvent carries the dissolved pigment outward and a drop becomes a patch.

A synthetic rubber base that is sticky and pliable at room temperature and brittle when very cold.

Method

1. Freeze it hard with an ice pack in a bag, giving it several minutes.
2. Shatter and lift the brittle pieces with a dull edge, working from the edges in.
3. Treat any remaining tacky residue with a solvent-side spotter, since gum base is oil soluble.
4. Rinse lightly and blot.

What not to do

• ×Do not pull at warm gum. It stretches, coats more fibres than it started on, and can pull tufts out of the backing.
• ×Do not apply heat to soften it. That drives it deeper into the pile.

Iron oxide, usually transferred from furniture glides, metal legs standing on damp carpet, or plant pots. It is a metal deposit rather than a conventional stain.

Method

1. Identify and remove the source, otherwise it returns.
2. Use a rust remover made for carpet, which works by chemically reducing the iron rather than lifting it.
3. Follow the product's rinse instructions carefully.
4. Dry thoroughly and put a barrier under the offending furniture leg.

What not to do

• ×Do not use a general-purpose cleaner and expect progress. Rust does not respond to detergent, because the problem is a metal compound bonded to the fibre.
• ×Do not use a bathroom or masonry rust remover. Those are typically strong acids and will strip carpet dye and can damage fibre.
• ×Do not put metal furniture legs back onto damp carpet after cleaning, which is how most of these marks appear in the first place.