You’ve probably implemented a “no eating in the living room or the bedrooms” rule if you care a lot about preventing messes. Unless you live in a tile house, though, your dining room is probably carpeted, and stains are bound to happen. You can’t stop yourself from eating or confine yourself to the kitchen, but certain foods may be smart to avoid bringing to the table – or at least to be a lot more careful when you are eating them. Even if you think it might be silly to restrict your diet based on keeping your carpet cleans, consider how the following foods can stain your floors.
Peanut Butter
While you most likely confine your peanut butter to sandwiches and apple slices, food can still get dropped. While that bread won’t do much but produce crumbs and those apple slices can easily be tossed in the trash, the peanut butter is going to leave an unsightly brown stain even after you pick most of it up. Peanut butter often contains oils that can make it harder to get out as well. You can attempt to get these stains out with dishwashing liquid and hot water, but it may be challenging to get out if the food has even a little too much time to dry.
Chocolate
Chocolate is another food that’s going to leave an unpleasant brown stain on your floor, even if you think the chocolate hasn’t melted enough to do so. While you may want to keep candy bars and chocolate treats in the kitchen, you can’t stop someone who doesn’t know the rules from taking it out to the carpet and dropping it, saturating your carpet fibers in a way that’s awful to see. Even worse, you might take to it with hot water only to find that hot water can set a chocolate stain permanently. When attempting to tackle a chocolate stain, always use cold water. It might require chemicals to remove altogether, however, so it may end up being a nightmare to try and get out.
Berries
Even the smallest foods can be the biggest culprits. Berries are full of juice that dyes your carpets clearly and immediately. Fruit juice, as well, is something you want to keep away from your carpets if you can. You can often remove berry stains with a combination of dishwashing liquid and white vinegar, but the stains often linger even after multiple rinses.
Baby Food
Stains caused by baby food are unfortunately inevitable if you have an infant unless your baby is miraculously well-behaved. Once baby food spills and dries onto the carpet, it can become a task to get the stain out. Removing a baby food stain can involve scraping, soaking the spot for hours, and even having to resort to using rubbing alcohol. It might be impossible to keep baby food away from your carpet, but you still want to try your best not to keep the mess as minimal as possible.
Gum
We all know the problem with gum. It’s a gooey and sticky thing that ends up leaving itself behind even when you pick it up right after it lands. You’d think your gum would be fine to chew in the living room because it stays in your mouth, but if you’ve ever misjudged when blowing a bubble, you know you can spit it out on accident. Removing gum often involves needing to freeze it, but you can’t precisely freeze a carpet, so you’ll want to avoid eating gum inside your house if you can.
Mustard
Mustard is an immense pain because people often forget that they need to blot the stain rather than rub it. Wiping away mustard only spreads the liquid and stains your carpet harshly in the end. Removing a mustard stain can mean getting chemicals involved, so be careful about spilling this condiment on your carpet.
Tomato-Based Products
Lastly, tomato sauces, ketchup, and salsa are all on the list of foods you want to avoid eating over your carpet. Unfortunately, these are also all incredibly common foods that may make an appearance in your dining room daily. Tomato-based products, like chocolate, can permanently set when you attempt to work them out with hot water and can stain harshly like mustard.
While you can sometimes remove these stains by soaking them in dishwashing liquid and white vinegar for about half an hour before scrubbing and rinsing, you probably want to avoid staining altogether.We understand that it may be asking a lot to keep certain foods out of your dining room. You may tell yourself that you’re going to be extra careful, but spills still happen, especially if you have children, pets that enjoy attempting to jump on the table, or generally clumsy hands.
To tackle all of those food stains that won’t come out in the end, we provide the quality steam carpet cleaning Brisbane has to offer for getting deep into the surface of your carpet and removing the most troublesome spots your food might cause.
About author: Jim Pulman has extensive knowledge and experience in Home Building, Construction, and Design. He writes articles in his free time and partners with content creators to share his expertise with the online community.