You have returned to your home after a hard day’s work. You sigh with relieve as you sink into the couch to relax. Your joy is rudely interrupted by a large ugly patch on your beautiful carpet. Upon checking, you discover it is a stain but you can’t remember anything spilling on it.
Hire a cleaner or DIY?
The easiest option for you could be to hire the services of professional carpet cleaners. The carpet is, however, clean since it is only three days since you had of the cleaners steam washed it. A sworn do-it-yourself (DIY), aficionado, you cannot bring yourself to paying the cleaner again just to remove the stain.
You opt to hire a carpet cleaning machine and use what you learnt in your chemistry classes to come up with a detergent you can use to remove the stain.
Use ammonia
Ammonia, whose chemical symbol is NH3, is a substance that institutional and individual cleaners have used as a cleaning agent for generations.
A good and relatively cheap agent for both commercial and domestic use, Ammonia has been utilised in cleaning kitchens, bathrooms and bathtubs, toilets and other different places of homes. It is readily available in most retail outlets that sell chemicals.
Purchase and mix
Once you have purchased the ammonia, do not just start cleaning your carpet. Read and follow carefully the instructions the manufacturer has provided either on the container or sheet of paper inside the container.
Ordinarily, a mixture of one teaspoon of ammonia in a cup of warm water will work miracles and get rid of all types of stains on your carpet. But try it out in an inconspicuous area of the carpet to see if it works.
Application
Sprinkle the mixture/solution on the patch or stained area of the carpet and wait for two to three minutes and then gently rub the stain off. You can use things like paper towels or tissue paper to rub the stain. Use of force may spread the stain.
If the stain is large enough you can take the carpet outside and clean it under a shade and then hung it to dry. If, however, you feel the stain is small and does not warrant you taking it out, then observe some precautions.
For instance, just like any time you use other chemicals indoors; ensure there is enough fresh air. This means you have to keep all your doors and windows open until the carpet is dry. Also, you can use an air freshener or scented ammonia type to reduce level of smell in the house.
Advantages
It is affordable to use ammonia to remove your carpet stain compared to commercial carpet cleaning. Ammonia will also kill unpleasant smells on your carpet.
Conclusion
Always try to remove the carpet stains as soon as possible. It is estimated that you can remove up to 99 per cent of all stains using a single cleaning agent if you clean them as soon as you notice them.