While we all love our pets.  It’s just sometimes they either misbehave, get sick, or have an accident.  Having pets, you will experience all of these mishaps at one time or another.  So, we will start with your dog getting sick. Maybe he ate something he should not have or they could even get the flu.  We have all had that before.  The first thing to do is to take a spoon and scoop up as much of any solid matter you can.  Next, take some paper towels and blot the stain lightly at first, then blot a little heavier again.  You want to try to absorb as much of any liquid involved without pushing it any deeper. Next, take a white cotton cloth like a man’s tee shirt.  Wet this with warm water and squeeze out enough excess water so that the cloth is still a little drippy wet.   Now blot the stain, then blot it dry with clean paper towels.  You’ll want to repeat this a few times.  Since this stain is acidic, the next step, you would want to take some club soda and put a sprayer into the bottle.  Now spray any stained areas.  Blot dry again.  Next, you want to go back to a final blot with fresh clean water and a dry blot to follow.  The above procedure would be the same instructions to follow if your pet had a bowel moment on a rug. 

Now, we will go over when your pet leaves you with a urine stain on your carpets.  Whether your carpet is wool or synthetic fiber, the procedures are the same.  If the stain just happened blot lightly with several pieces of paper towels. Just remember lightly, so you do not push the urine any deeper into the rug.  Next, take more clean paper towels and this time blot using a little more pressure.  Ok, now you can take some more paper towels and blot the stain by actually stepping on it to try to get any urine that has penetrated deep into your carpet fibers.  The next step is to take some white vinegar and make a solution of 10% vinegar and 90% warm water.  Use a white cotton cloth like a men’s tee shirt. Dip the cloth into the solution so it is drippy wet and blot the stain with this solution. Let it sit for a few minutes then blot dry with some paper towels.  You can also start with this step if you have an old pet stain.  If by chance your carpet contains silk or linen you would want to just follow the blotting instruction above but use just water instead of a water-vinegar solution. 

With all of the above situations, there is bound to be some residual that may be left in the carpet fibers. This residual will contain bacteria and would also contain salt if it is a urine stain.  If the salts are not rinsed out, they will eventually become alkaline and could cause a chemical burn to your fibers that are natural if left there.  The salts will also absorb humidity from the air in the room and cause the salts to give off ammonia as a byproduct, thus causing a urine smell, especially in warmer humid weather.  The bacteria, well, that will just continue to multiply, since almost every rug has some dirt in it, no matter how clean you think it is.   For these reasons, now is the time to call Alec’s Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning at 781-871-4428 to come and make sure everything is out of your carpets and they are as clean as they can be.