My motto is: be prepared!
And when you have teenagers in your home, you’d better be prepared for
parties. And when you have parties in your home, you’d better be
prepared for stains.
Last Saturday (you know, October 31st?) my son hosted a Hallowe’en
party for a whole bunch of his friends from school and work. It was
such a blast! They played spooky sound-effects on the CD player and
decorated the whole basement like a haunted house. All the kids dressed
up in costumes and there were bowls of candy everywhere. One of the
haunted house attractions that the kids had devised was a blindfold
food test – everyone had to stick their hands into different bowls of
food while blindfolded…you know, cold spaghetti for worms, a bowl of
jello for brains, peeled grapes for eyeballs. Once you passed the
gross-out test, you got a glass of “blood punch” to drink – a
nasty-looking but tasty little cocktail made from cranberry juice,
grape juice and club soda that looks like a vampire’s dream-come-true!
While Dad and I stayed out of the way upstairs, the kids had a roaring
good time, and all the kids cleared out right around the witching hour.
Then our son cleared away the dishes (always our arrangement if the
kids want to host a party), but soon he approached me with a sheepish
request for help. Seems some of the gross-out foods and quite a lot of
the red punch had been spilled on the basement carpet. Uh-oh! Luckily
there’s nothing I like better than a real challenge, and I am known as
somewhat of a stain-removal guru, so I grabbed my son and we got to
work.
The first step was to identify what the stains were. You need to know
what you’re up against when getting stains out of a carpet. Our stain
inventory consisted of:
- fruit juice (in the “blood punch”)
- pop
- ketchup (fake blood)
- gum (ack!)
Now, each of these stains needs a different approach to cleaning. Fruit
juice and pop stains especially set really fast, so acting quickly is
important. The first job was to soak up any excess fluids in the fruit
juice and pop stains. Once we did this, we set to work on the fruit
juice, by sprinkling the stain liberally with borax. You need to let
this sit for about an hour, then rinse with water, soak up the excess
liquid and let it dry. While we were waiting for that, we moved on to
the pop stains, which we handled with my favourite tool: vinegar! All
you need to do is mix equal parts white vinegar and water, pour it on
the stain and then soak up the liquid. The stain should come right up.
If it doesn’t, wait for the carpet to dry somewhat and then try rubbing
the stain with hand sanitizer (the gel kind works better than the foam
kind).
So, that leaves us with the ketchup. Tomato-based stains are a
different thing altogether, and simply the best tip I know for removing
anything tomato-related (tomato sauce, juice, ketchup, salsa…) is to
rub shaving foam into the stain with a sponge (vigourously, if
necessary). Wipe it off and then vacuum up any residue when dry.
Lastly, we cracked out the ice cubes and went to work on the gum. Just
freeze that gum good and hard, and then you should be able to pick it
right off with no lasting stain.
So don’t let little spills and messes ruin your party – go on and have fun: you know you can always clean up later!