Recipe 41 of 100 · The Country Cleans Mix Book
How to Clean Carpet Traffic Lanes Before Company
Gray Path in the Hallway
That gray path from the door to the kitchen isn't a stain, it's a lane. Vacuum it twice. In a carpet extractor, use 1 gallon hot water (about 120 F), 2 tablespoons oxygen bleach powder and 1 teaspoon low foaming dish soap: one slow wet pass, 10 minutes, then slow dry passes. Rinse with plain warm water, then a gallon of warm water with 1/2 cup vinegar. Fan dry 4 to 6 hours. Never on wool.
What it fixesGray brown walkway paths in hallways, in front of couches, and at doorways, cleaned with a rental machine or a home carpet extractor.
You need
- 1 gallon hot water, about 120 F (3.8 L)
- 2 tablespoons oxygen bleach powder, the sodium percarbonate kind from the laundry aisle
- 1 teaspoon clear low foaming dish soap, no more
- 1 gallon plain warm water (3.8 L) for the middle rinse, nothing added
- Separate rinse tank mix: 1 gallon warm water (3.8 L) with 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
- Bucket and a stir stick
Mix it
- Put the hot water in the bucket first, then add the oxygen bleach and stir 60 seconds until fully dissolved. It needs hot water to activate. Cold water leaves it inert.
- Add the single teaspoon of dish soap and stir gently.
- In a second bucket, mix the rinse solution of warm water and vinegar. Keep these two buckets completely separate. The rinse goes in only after the cleaning pass is finished and the tank is emptied and refilled.
Use it
- Patch test in a closet, including one full extraction pass, and let it dry completely before doing the room.
- Vacuum the lane thoroughly, twice, in both directions.
- Fill the machine tank with the oxygen bleach solution and make one slow wet pass down the lane.
- Let it dwell 10 minutes. Do not walk on it.
- Make two or three dry suction passes with no spray, pulling the machine back slowly. Slow passes are what actually removes the water.
- Empty the tank, rinse it out, and fill it with the gallon of plain warm water. Make one wet pass and then two or three dry suction passes. Do not skip this. It is what gets the oxygen bleach back out of the carpet before any vinegar goes near it, because acid kills oxygen bleach on contact and the two never touch each other wet.
- Empty the tank again, rinse it out, and fill it with the vinegar rinse solution.
- Make one wet pass with the vinegar rinse, then three dry suction passes. This rinse pulls out leftover detergent, which is the reason DIY cleaned carpet usually re soils in two weeks.
- Run a fan on the room for 4 to 6 hours.
Dale's noteOne teaspoon of soap per gallon feels like nothing. It is correct. Extra soap does not clean better, it just stays in the carpet and turns into a sticky dirt trap.
Don'tNever run oxygen bleach or hot water through wool, silk, or a natural fiber rug. Oxygen bleach destroys wool protein fiber and hot water will shrink and buckle it, and neither is reversible. Also never mix the vinegar rinse into the cleaning solution, since the acid neutralizes the oxygen bleach on contact and you will be spraying plain water.
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