Spot Cleaning Tips from The Pros

3/22/2016 (Permalink)

·         Wax-We’ve all had it happen. Our favorite candle overflows and wax gets all over our furniture. Or, in my case, my cat knocked over a wax warmer and the wax spilled down the wall and onto the carpet. With this tip we will help you get the wax out. If the wax is colored, chances are that no amount of cleaning will rid you of the new colored area. For hard surfaces, such as tables or countertops (or your wall), allow the wax to cool completely and harden. Then it can be easily scrapped off of the surface and thrown away or re-melted (if you’d like to attempt it again). Removing the wax from your carpet it a bit trickier. You’ll want to grab your iron and a white towel. Turn the iron on to the lowest setting (most carpet is made of synthetic fibers, so this step is VERY important). Then fold your white towel in half and place it over the wax. With even pressure and a steady movement, apply the iron to the top of the towel. This will cause the wax to begin to melt and then transfer to the towel. Again, any stain from the color of the wax will stay on both surfaces. If you choose to try to treat the color issue, we recommend that you contact our office so that we can use professional products on the stain. The products sold over the counter have brighteners in them which can cause bleaching where they were used when you have your carpets cleaned next.

·         Red Wine- First-BLOT, don’t rub! You can also try to use the towel & iron method on this type of stain if it is a fresh stain. It should pull SOME of the color out. Red wine contains natural dyes, which are cleaned differently than synthetic dyes like you would find in most wax. Once you’ve tried that, if you still need to extract more color, contact our office. We have special cleaning techniques that may allow for greater success when used as soon as possible.

·         Blood- In the case of a major clean up job, it’s always best to call in the professionals. Sometimes though, you might have a couple of small drops of blood on your carpet. You can get a cup of ICE water. It is important that the water be as cold as possible. Then pour a little water on each spot. You’ll probably notice that the blood will pool up in the water. Once you’ve covered the spots in ice water, you can go back and BLOT the spots up. This trick usually works very well.

·         Paint- Well, there’s not much you can do in this case except for a very HEAVY rinse. The area will need to be saturated and then extracted. This is the type of stain you want to keep wet with a wet towel until our technicians can get to your location. They will then use the truck-mounted extraction system to extract as much paint as possible. Once the paint is extracted a good cleaning will help make sure your carpet doesn’t get that crunchy feeling.

Some important things to keep in mind: Stains are all going to be in one of two categories, natural or synthetic. Knowing which category your stain fits into will help you and your SERVPRO professionals determine the best course of action in handling your issue.