If you happen to have pets, children, or a husband, then you most definitely will need some kind of product to clean tough carpet stains.
There are many commercial products out there that claim to do the trick. After having tried many of them – from sprays to powders to foams – I was truly amazed that none of them worked that well. The one or two that did seem to remove most of the stain required a LOT of scrubbing with a brush. Of course, vigorous scrubbing tends to ruin carpet fibers!
To make matters worse, commercial carpet cleaning products can be relatively expensive.
Thus, I set out to brew my own ultra-powerful carpet cleaning solution for just pennies. And I’m happy to report that I succeeded! Here’s how you can make your own super-powerful carpet cleaner…
My first clue that I had it all wrong was when I saw someone cleaning a carpet stain with an ammonia-based floor cleaner. I’ll be damned if that ammonia didn’t totally obliterate the stain and odor with almost zero scrubbing!
I couldn’t find that particular floor cleaner, but I figured the ammonia must be the key ingredient. So, I set out on the net in search of other people’s home-brewed carpet cleaning solutions. Armed with everyone else’s ideas, I combined them together into: Devastator™ Carpet Cleaner!
This little concoction is easy and cheap to make, and it works incredibly well to completely remove the toughest stains. I know, I know… I sound like all those advertisements for commercial cleaning products. The difference is, I’m not full of crap.
So, here’s what you need:
- A 1 liter container (about 1 quart, or 32 oz)
- Water
- 4 Tbsp ammonia
- 1 tsp dishsoap
- Optional: 1 tbsp of oxy-type powder/liquid color-safe stain remover for clothing without bleach
Bleach + ammonia = poisonous bad juju, so be careful in your choice of “oxy-product”.
Put all the ingredients into your bottle/container, and then fill the rest of the way with warm water. Put on the cap/lid and shake well to dissolve all the goodies and mix up the solution.
Now you just pour some into a little spray bottle, and grab a scrub brush.
First, blot up as much liquid from the stain as possible. Then, just spray some home-made Devastator liberally on the stain, and scrub for about 5-10 seconds. Voila! The stain vanishes! If you get a little foaming, fear not – it’ll disappear once dry.
Note that if you use straight or watered-down ammonia, it ain’t gonna work so well. It will remove most of the stain, but not all of it. That’s where the bit of dish soap and “activated oxygen” type cleaning stuff comes into play.
Also, if the solution is too ammonia-y for you, you can drop the ammonia dosage down to 2 or 3 tablespoons instead. Sometimes ammonia from one store is a higher concentration than ammonia from another store. So, you’ll have to experiment a bit if it’s burning your nose every time you use the spray.
If you have a powered carpet cleaning machine, you can also mix up a batch of this stuff to use as the “cleaning solution”.
Sure, you still need to buy some commercial products, but you only need tiny amounts of each – the rest is good old fashioned water. That means one less product to buy, which is more cash in your wallet and no more stains on your carpets!
Happy scrubbing!
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