Ever had one of those moments where something was spilled on the carpet and you didn’t know what to do? I provide carpet cleaning in Ellicott City, Md and many of my customers have children. We get rain which means that children spend an inordinate amount of time indoors. Sometimes they get creative. Recently I got a call to a home where little Johnny (name changed to protect the guilty) had spread his 244 colors of crayons out on the carpet. He grew a little bored coloring and switched to trucks. A rainbow of crayon ended up crushed on his bedroom floor. Unfortunately, some fell near the baseboard heater and melted.
The Internet has how to articles on any topic that you imagine including how to write how to articles. I read the articles about crayon removal from carpet. Take a look at this link Five Different Methods to Remove Crayon from Carpet. How do you know what to believe? Many of tips probably work. But how do you which one will work for you on your carpet? Let me share with you my basic stain removal philosophy.
- Experiment on a sample piece of carpet that matches the carpet in your home.
- Work your way up from the least to the best
The article mentions five methods.
- scraping with a dull knife
- freezing with ice and scraping
- heating with a hair dryer or iron
- cleaning with dish soap and water
- cleaning with rubbing alcohol, baking soda, or hydrogen peroxide
First of all I see more than five methods here. Each chemical in step 5 represents another procedure with an entirely different possible outcome. How would you arrange the list to go from least to beast? I would do it this way.
- scraping
- ice and scraping
- dish soap and water
- baking soda
- rubbing alcohol
- hydrogen peroxide
- hair dyer or iron
Take your sample piece of carpet. Crush crayon on it. Melt it. Now start with step 1. Try scraping the melted crayon off the carpet. How did that come out for you? Did it remove the crayon? Did it take the color with it?
If that failed to remove it all, go to step 2. Crayons are similar to candle wax except a little softer and with more color. Ice, dry ice, or commercial Freon sprays harden the wax and make it easy to chip it off the fiber. Try it. How did that work? The first two steps added nothing to the stain. You have only scraped and frozen. From here on out you add things which can help or make things worse.
Okay, try the soap and water. Did that remove the remaining stain? Try the baking soda.
Now we start adding stronger chemical–chemicals that can change the color of your carpet.
Work your way down the list using your sample carpet as the guinea pig. Why did I save the iron to the last? Heat can melt the crayon deeper into the fiber or even melt the carpet itself. I call that the beast method. It may work, but save your big guns to the end (to mix my metaphors).
Use good common sense. Understand the nature of the stain. Prioritize your treatment least to beast. Experiment on the sample.
Hope this information is helpful! Until next time