Things you’ll need:
Carpet brush (any brush with a handle)
Resolve Carpet cleaner (this is my favorite)
Oxi clean
Spray Bottle
Goo Gone (the kind in a spray bottle) – for any gum or muck
Vacuum
We have had tenants move out and the carpets have looked beyond salvageable. Often times they are not salvageable and we just replace (with vinyl plank flooring – we’ve had pretty good experience with this-I’ll need to write another flooring review post for those interested in our flooring experiences), but we’ve saved some carpets with this scrubbing method.
By the way, I haven’t had great luck with carpet cleaning machines. I just feel like they don’t work as well as scrubbing by hand. Maybe scrubbing by hand and then using a carpet cleaning machine would work best. Scrubbing by hand is alot of work though but I feel like it really pays off. Hard work pays off – that’s the mantra I like to repeat to myself over and over as sort of a hypnotic trance while cleaning. :-p
1.) Spray the carpet with Resolve and brush the cleaner into the carpet, then let sit. Vacuum up after dry.
2.) If the carpet remains darker in some spots after cleaning, spray an oxi-clean/water (mix oxi-clean into some hot water in a spray bottle) solution onto the area and scrub into the carpet with a brush. Let sit for a while, then vacuum again.
This worked really well on our light beige carpet. We actually had large areas that were stained darker and this worked like a charm to lighten them up. I’m not sure I would use it on darker carpets though – you’d have to test in a small area.
Believe it or not, this carpet had an entire slushie spilled on it and it was never cleaned up. I thought it wasn’t going to be salvageable, but with alot of scrubbing and then some oxi-clean and it looks pretty good if I do say so myself. We replaced the carpets in every other room b/c they had cigarette burns and stuff that couldn’t be fixed unfortunately. But we were able to save the stairs and one bedroom using this method. It’s not perfect but it’s a rental. And some spots I wasn’t too worried about b/c I knew there would be a bed covering it. Now, to do my own house using this method. I’m too busy cleaning houses that other people are going to live in that my own house is starting to suffer. :-p
If you have any muck or gum on the carpet, the Goo Gone spray gets it off amazingly well! It again takes some muscle, but I’ve gotten whole pieces of gum out of the carpet with it AND construction muck (if you know what that means – it’s gooey, oily muck that manages to get on the carpet when doing construction work – I don’t know where it comes from but it always magically appears.) If you have kids, then you know that candy and gum are the worst offenders – comes off like a charm.. A tiny piece of candy flies out of their mouth when they chew and then dirt gets stuck to it and eventually you have a nice black spot on the carpet – I’ve gotten these out as well with this! It’s magic! Spray it with the Goo Gone and use a white cloth to rub at it until it’s gone – keep spraying and rubbing until you either crumble into a pile of dust or the stain is gone… :-p
