Ask a QuestionHere are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community or ask a new question.
The other day while replacing the element in the water heater, my darling husband flooded our bathroom, closet, and part of our bedroom. This means wet carpeting. While the carpet is nearly dry, there's a nasty stench in the rooms now. Any idea how to get rid of that? Thanks for the help.
By Sarah Leach from Berrien Springs, MI
I'd try baking soda. Sprinkle it all over, rub it in the carpet really good with a broom, let it sit overnight and vacuum up the next morning. This worked for me.
Hire a professional to extract the water out of not only the carpet but the sub flooring. They guarantee their work so the expense should be nil to none. Also check with your home owners insurance they should pay the extractors for you. It won't hurt you to check into it, but good luck and let us know how it turns out for ya!
My washtub overflowed and flooded my family room. How do I get the smell out of the carpet from the rugs being wet? I shampooed them but that didn't help.
By kaye
Or you could rent a steamer and do it yourself. Backbreaking work, but you'll have the machine for 24 hours and will be able to really sort this mess.
Make sure you get the de-foamer as it sounds as though you've saturated the carpet and padding with way lots more soap than the shampooer could remove. So your first step is going to be getting all that soap up (that's where your odor is coming from-soap actually smells pretty bad if you don't get it all up).
It may take two or three passes with the de-foamer but be patient, and remember to rinse-rinse-rinse with that rental cleaner. It's every bit as powerful as the one the pros use, and should pull the wet out of your carpet with some serious elbow grease.
The carpet in our back room has gotten wet; I can only assume from the sprinkler for the back lawn. It now has wet carpet stench to it. I have opened the back door and have a fan blowing in there, but I'm not sure if that will work. We are renting so I don't really want to pay for a carpet cleaner until we move. It is only a small area that has gotten wet, but the carpet is in once piece and I can't remove it from the room. Any ideas?
By Carmel
Only an assumption, but is sounds as if the floor under the carpet has mold growing under carpet. Only way to know is to lift up the wet portion of the carpet for a look. Once up bleach may kill the mold but the carpet may also have to treated to kill any mold in the carpet. Bleach on thecarpet will leave a stain as you may already know.
ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. These are archives of older discussions.
We had a heavy rain, and the 8x8 area rug I had in the basement got wet. I took it outside to dry, however now it smells. How can I get rid of that odor?
Terri from Springfield, MA
I have not tried this on wet carpet, but it has worked on absolutely everything else I've tried it on, including sour clothing.
X-O ODOR NEUTRALIZER
CALIFORNIA VETERINARY SUPPLY
www.calvetsupply.com
1-800-366-3047
Made from nature's safest and most effective ingredients: extracts of herbs, fruits, and cereal grains in pure deionized water. X-O neutralizes all odors on hard and soft surfaces. Effective on ALL odors. Safe for skin contact, avoid the eyes. Totally non-toxic and bio degradable, this concentrate works directly on areas for odor neutralization, or even on the air in a room. Can be used indoors or outdoors. Can be used directly on the animals, if necessary.
Applications:
Health Care: diaper pails, bed pans, etc.
Smoke: tobacco, cooking, fire, must and mildew odors
Good on both hard and soft surfaces, including glass, stainless steel, chrome, countertops, floors and fabrics.
Ready to use right out of the bottle - simply spray or pour on.
Good on both hard and soft surfaces, including glass, stainless steel, chrome, countertops, floors and fabrics.
(09/14/2008)
By Babette
Any smells on carpet need an enzyme spray. This will eat the bacteria on the carpet that causes the smell, you can purchase at any commercial cleaning product company. (09/16/2008)
By Paula
Have a written complaint about the toilet and the carpet and present it to the landlord/management company. Keep a copy for yourself. If it is not fixed in 7 days, go to your Tenants Council for further advisement. Also check with your local Legal Aid about options.
This is a health hazard and you can void your lease due to that. (05/08/2007)
By Theresa
In some cases the local fire dept. will come with big fans and help dry out carpets.
Call their INFORMATION LINE NOT 911!
Make your landlord fix both. "Carpet Fresh" might help a little.
Also you can add VANILLA EXTRACT to paint to help kill the paint odor. It worked for us a couple of weeks ago.
Great Granny Vi (05/08/2007)
By Vi Johnson
I had something similar to that happen to me in my kitchen (washing machine overflowed). I pried up the metal strip between the kitchen floor and the dining room carpet, then lifted the carpet off the tack strip in that area. I put things under the carpet (I recall putting a potato masher under it, among other things) to keep if off the floor a bit, then ran a fan so the air blew under the lifted carpet. When the carpet was dry it still smelled a little weird, but I used Resolve on it to give it a good cleaning and eventually the smell went away.
I doubt you will have a great-smelling carpet by this weekend for your guests, but you can probably have it at least dry by then. (05/08/2007)
By Katie
If you have access to a steam cleaner (a friend or relative or try calling rental shops in your area, some are very reasonable) fill the tank with hot water and white vinegar. This make take a few times...also fill a spray bottle with full strength vinegar for the worst spots. I swear by this. I moved into a house that smelled VERY strongly of cat urine and this really helped.Best of luck to you. (06/25/2007)
By Duckie
The church I clean had a toilet overflow on Sunday night in the basement restroom. It was discovered Monday morning with about 2 inches of water standing in the carpeted floor. A wet vac has gotten the water up and I ran a fan on it but what is left is a WET CARPET smell! Does ANYONE know of a product that will help? I am desperate.
Sharon, Ky
Sprinkle soda bicarbonate all over the carpet (if the carpet is dry) Leave for 30 mins or so and vacuum up. You can add a few drops of essentil oil or perfume to the soda b. Otherwise, just rip it up and through it out. If you have hardwood floors, finish it off!
Good luck (03/09/2005)
By Arlene
hr667689">forgetmenotaromas
I hope you have a WET VAC to get most of the water out of the carpet. If you don't have a wet vac, you can lay towels down and walk on the towels to soak the water out. You could place the towels in the spin cycle of your washer to wring out the water and reuse the towels to soak some more water out.
To remove the odor, I would suggest spraying the carpet with Febreeze which you can buy at the grocery store. It is fabulous for removing smoke smells, and I would think it would be great to remove any foul smell. After wet vacuuming, I would spray on the Febreeze generously and work the Febreeze down in the carpet with a stiff scrubbing brush. Then let it dry.
I highly suggest a fan to blow on the carpet to help it dry faster.
As far as your ceiling, just let it dry...a fan blowing up on the ceiling would be helpful...and THEN, you will have to "kill" the stain with "Block", "Bin", or "Kilz" or some other stain killer you can buy at the paint store. Buy a throw away sponge brush. Most of these stain killers contain shellac which would require alcohol to clean out. You'll spend more than 59 cents worth of alcohol to clean the brush.
After the stain killer drys, you will have to paint over the "blocked out" stain to match the rest of your ceiling paint. Do NOT just try to paint over the stain without first sealing the stain. The paint itself will NOT block out the stain. (03/09/2005)
By Lee Smithson
Oh the wonders of white vinegar. Use a carpet cleaner with white vinegar and water. Also set bowls of white vinegar around the room. The smell of the vinegar will not linger. It will soften the carpet and do away with the odor. The bowls of vinegar might even do it without shampooing, but I wouldn't advise it. Don't worry about the vinegar smell. It will be gone as soon as you remove the bowls. (05/25/2005)
By Ardis
trying to cover the smell instead of getting rid of the problem is gross. Any time carpet has water damage,it is better to replace it,because wet,dirty carpet is a perfect environment for mold. (11/16/2006)
By karen
