You can buy a spot carpet cleaner, or you can rent one that will suck up all the excess moisture, and it has a cleaning solution built into it. You can press a little button, and it’ll squirt cleaning solution out. You can scrub it real good and then suck up the excess moisture with this. If you’re at home and you don’t have one of these, you don’t have time, or you don’t feel like spending the money on something like this, you can use vinegar and water to spray on the spot.
Method #1: Removing Mold From Carpet Using Vinegar
Vinegar is a great disinfectant, and it will kill a lot of the bacteria and the mold. Alcohol will definitely kill all of the molds, and it also dries really easily, so this is a good cleaner. If you’re left with a stain after the mold is killed and the spot is fairly dry, you may want to make your own home carpet cleaner using dishwashing liquid and water. If it’s a little more of a serious stain, you think it’s been sitting there too long. You can add some vinegar to that mixture and mix it up. You can scrub it with a toothbrush if you want or use a sponge to apply it and scrub it well.
Just make sure that after you’ve cleaned up the mold stain that you dry the area really well. You might want to put a fan beside it or have windows open. Make sure to get the area dry, so the mold doesn’t come back.
Method #2: Get Mildew Out of a Carpet Using Detergent
The tools that you’re going to need for this method are hydrogen peroxide, ammonia, a little cup, teaspoon, any little brush, some towels, laundry detergent, wet and dry vacuum, and water. Whenever you have a constant source of hidden moisture in carpet fibers, you’re going to have stains that will develop, and we normally call those mildew stains. If the carpet had a chance to dry out, then you wouldn’t have that problem, but because that water is being held, concealed under an object like a plant, that’s where the problem starts.
You can’t start doing any stain treatment until the area has been cleaned. How do you do that? The easiest way is for you to use a little bit of laundry detergent. You mix it in a little cup with a little bit of water. And you’re going to apply it to the section, and you’re going to work it in, and then you’re going to extract it. However, the first thing you do before you clean the carpet is you have to extract with a wet and dry vacuum, and if you don’t have one, it’s a great tool to have. Ideally, you have a small carpet cleaning spotting machine, but a wet and dry vacuum will do. And you pick up as much as the residue as you can before you start cleaning.
After you’ve done that you grab your cup, you put a little bit of laundry detergent, and you mix it with water. Use this solution now to wet a section of a towel, and you gently dab on the spot. You don’t want to rub because that will create even more fiber distortion and you need to minimize that. You blot from the outer edge of the stain towards the center to keep it from spreading and making it bigger.
Next, you have to rinse. You need to rinse because there’s always going to be a little bit of residue from that detergent. Use laundry detergent than any other type of dishwashing liquid, because those are designed to do dishes, not textiles. You’re going to rinse by using your wet and dry vacuum again.
So you pour water, and you pick it up. And you repeat that until the stain is fully rinsed. You’re going to continue to extract to get the area as dry as possible. And now that you know that the area is clean, now you can concentrate on how to remove the stain that remains there, assuming that there is no fiber damage or dye damage, which usually happens in these cases. If you have damage, it will be permanent, but you can try to remove it because maybe it hasn’t had any time to damage the fibers yet.
Now that the area has been cleaned and is somewhat dry, it doesn’t necessarily need to be fully dry. You have to try to remove the stain, and you’re going to use for that hydrogen peroxide.
Hydrogen peroxide is the oxygen releasing product that will bleach out the stain that’s there. You need to apply it gently, carefully, and all you need to do is use just regular household hydrogen peroxide. After you apply the hydrogen peroxide, you use the ammonia. And the ammonia, the reason you use it is that it creates a chemical reaction that speeds up the process of oxidation and removes all of the stains.
So you want to apply a little bit of ammonia to activate it. And now is the time to wait and see what happens. You have to allow these products to do their job. You could repeat the process. If after the first application, you don’t get the desired results, you can repeat the process two to three times. There is no need to do it any more than that because if it takes longer than that, the damage is permanent.
A couple of things to remember. Always pretest. You don’t want to make the problem worse than it is. Second, you use a little bit at a time. You don’t want to overdo it at the beginning. It’s always easier to apply more if you need to. So you have to use the hydrogen peroxide a little bit and just a tiny bit of ammonia. The ammonia is not there for any other purpose than to activate the hydrogen peroxide.
