Imagine the shock and horror when a house keeper for a beautiful country lodge arrives back at work after her week end off, only to discover that her wedding party from Saturday night have danced velvet red rose petals into her venues Nowens wool carpet.
I received the call and reassured her I would be on site as soon as possible to assess the damage and work out what cleaning method would clean the carpet, so that her carpet would be clean and ready to use for her next booking in a couple of days.
I arrived; at first glance saw a room that looked like it had been the venue of a red wine making session, bringing back memories from my childhood of Italian friends that made their own red wine. The original green wool carpet a perfect square patch in the centre of the room was evidence of the now missing dance floor, surrounded by carpet that had had the over flow of red rose petals now with deep purple “stains” imprinted on it.
My first thought was I hope it won’t require the same treatment as red wine, as this would be quite a mission on an area this big, requiring buckets of Lecol lemon juice or very dry white wine.
I then settled down on the edge of the clean patch of carpet with what is commonly referred to as my box of tricks. My mind racing back over the years of my father’s training; I could not recall any instance of red rose petals, only mulberry stains, bird dropping of a berry eating bird and red wine stains, were all that came to mind, so I set to work testing what chemicals would remove the “stains” from the carpet.
My first choice was an acid PH basic spotter and a clean white towel, keeping it simple as this was a wool carpet. I dabbed the liquid onto the towel and wiped a small area, to my relief a bright pink stain on the carpet transferred to the towel, more and more and then finally it stopped.
So now I tried an alkaline PH detergent to see if the remainder of the marks and any oils from the petals could be lifted. What a surprise when my white towel had a green transfer, my initial thought, “was I taking the colour of the carpet?”
No, it turned out the alkaline PH was changing the dye colour of the petals to a beautiful teal green. After an hour of testing out comes, I concluded what would be the best process. Technology, being what it is today, my team supervisor received detailed instructions to deal with the situation later that day. I am pleased to say the carpet is spotlessly clean and ready for it next stampede of guests. Team Immaculate carpet cleaning to the rescue.