Expert: Jahann and Sons Persian Rugs - 5/4/2010

Question
There was a mysterious brown stain on my mum's white fluffy carpet, i knew she loved the carpet so i was trying to get the stain out. I stupidly thought "Bleach makes thing white,why don't i try it?" Instead of a brown stain, the stain is now ginger and even bigger. Can you give me some advice on how to remove the stain? I looked into buying her a new one but they are dead expensive and im skint! Please help!

Answer
Hi Poppy,

Sorry to hear about your rug!  Bleach is harsh, so the damage may have been done, but there may be a few things you can do.  

For starters, we should try and figure out what the stain is.  Could it be rust, by any chance?  A lot of times the feet of furniture have small metal casters or ends on them that sometimes rust and then end up leaving brown marks on rugs.  If this is something that may have happened to your rug, then a rust remover product may work very well to get rid of this stain (this type of product: http://www.amazon.com/Whink-Prod-01281-Stain-Remover/dp/B000LNQNM0/ref=sr_1_4?ie...).  As always, do a test spot before you put anything on your rug.

It may be that the bleach stained the rug.  Often times, when using bleach without diluting it, it can turn spots yellow.  The fix for this is hydrogen peroxide.  Use it sparingly (and as always, do a test spot!), and it should be able to get the yellowing stain out.

Hopefully, a combination of these two products used carefully will help you to get the stains out.  Dilute the products, don't use them full strength, and use white towels to mop up as you go.  You can always add more product, but you can't take it out, so be patient and go slowly.

I hope this helps!  

Best of luck,
Katie

Jahann and Sons Persian Rugs
4210 Howard Avenue | Kensington, MD 20895
301.530.6660 | www.jahannandsons.com