It’s happened to most of us, usually at the most inopportune moment, you reach for your cup of coffee with one eye on the breakfast news and knock the cup before you can reach the handle. You make a last-ditch lunge to catch it but it’s too late. You are left with a big brown stain, and not a lot of time to sort it out before you have to leave for work.
If you have no time at all before you have to leave, then there will be more work later, but it can still be cleaned up. First and foremost, if you do have time, don’t panic and begin rubbing the stain frantically with the first cloth you can find. Rubbing like this will only spread the stain further. Find a clean white cloth to lift up as much of the liquid as you can. Use a blotting motion pushing in towards the centre of the stain from all sides. Keep using different clean parts of the cloth, rather than the same area all the time.
Next, pour a small amount of cold water onto the stain to dilute the remaining coffee residue. Take another fresh clean white cloth and as before, use the same blotting motion towards the centre of the stain with clean parts of the cloth as you go along. You may need to repeat this process a number of times until the stain is gone. The number of times is likely to depend upon the type of carpet material as well as the type of spill. A strong espresso spilled onto a white deep pile carpet for example, will probably need more passes. Make sure you don’t get the carpet too wet when adding the cold water, just enough to dilute the coffee will do.
If you have had to run out to work, leaving the coffee on the carpet, you may need a little extra something to get it out when you get home. The blotting motion towards the centre of the stain using the clean white cloth described above, is exactly the same when dealing with a dried stain with one important difference, the stain must be rehydrated with a little chemical assistance added. For pure wool or wool mix carpets, add a few drops of mild dish detergent to one cup of water. If you are absolutely sure there is no wool in your carpet, you can replace the detergent with a tablespoon of ammonia.
Sponge the liquid onto the coffee stain, making sure you don’t get the carpet too wet. Wait three to five minutes for the stain to rehydrate, then begin the same blotting process used on a wet stain until it has gone.
To finish, you can use a proprietary carpet stain remover if you wish. Make sure you follow the instructions carefully and again, don’t let the carpet get too wet.
So, spilling coffee on your carpet need not be the catastrophe it first seems, as long as you carefully follow these simple rules. And if all else fails, then contact us. We are a professional carpet cleaning service here to help you in your time of need.
