Thursday, October 27, 2011

Scary Stains From Halloween

I don't know about you, but I deal with some pretty scary stains after halloween. My kids come home and dump their candy all over my family room carpet. And every year "someone" gets chocolate on the carpet. Here is a sure fire plan that will help you should your little "goblins" get chocolate on your family room carpet!

1  Rub an ice cube over the stain so that the chocolate becomes hard and won’t smear into the surrounding fabric. Once it is hard scrape as much chocolate off as you can. Use a vacuum to lift the flaked chocolate off the carpet.
2. Wait until the chocolate warms back up to room temperature, and blot it with warm/hot water and a wet cloth. Continue to blot the stain until nothing comes off on the cloth.

3. Mix up 1 tablespoon borax, 1 tablespoon baking soda and add some club soda together until you have a thin paste and rub it from the outside of the stain to the center. Don’t smear the stain around or work in a circle – just blot and wipe towards the center of the stain.

4. Using a damp white cloth, blot the stain and continue the above process until nothing more comes off onto the white cloth.

5. If the stain is still visible you can use some old fashioned laundry soap and work it into the area.

6. You can also dilute some of the laundry soap in hot water and add a few teaspoons of rubbing alcohol and place over the stain.

7. Continue to blot the stain until it is removed.

8. An enzyme based spot remover such as Unique, which will “eat” the chocolate as long as it remains wet. Place the stain remover directly on the stain and place a wet paper towel over the area. The longer you keep it wet, the longer it will continue to work on the stain.

3 comments:

  1. Very good solution. Thanks for sharing :)

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  2. Hey we do commercial cleaning out of Arizona and just wanted to let you know that your blog is supremely excellent and has great article. Everyday people definitely need this information and we appreciate you taking the time to write it for them, keep up the good work!

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  3. Never would have thought of using the ice cube to harden the chocolate. Thanks for the great tip!

    Suzanne
    Radically reducing the use of chemicals in personal care and cleaning.

    ReplyDelete