Well, it was bound to happen...

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DeathBrewer

DeathBrewer

Maniacally Malty
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I haven't made a mess brewing in a LONG time. a little spill here or there, no big deal. clean it up fast and there's nothing to worry about.

so today i made an irish red ale and everything went smoothly. got it done in less than 4 hours with plenty of goofing off and watching netflix on the x-box. i even ran water lines all the way across the carpet and onto the deck for cooling for only the second time. works great.

i was done with just about everything. all the small pots were cleaned, the chiller, the bags, all the tools were put away, the sampler...everything but the stock pot. it's got a good amount of crap in there because the false bottom keeps alot from getting in the carboy.

so i get the bright idea of pouring it down the toilet instead of just putting it down the garbage disposal. i walk into the bathroom and notice i have to lift the toilet seat up, so i set the pot on the sink. go to lift the toilet seat up and hear a crash behind me.

the goddamn pot fell off the sink. it leapt out of the bathroom and managed to spray a 4x5 foot mass of gunk all over the carpet. it sprayed on the wall, too, no big deal, but man...this stuff just soaked into the carpet immediately.

i quickly grabbed a bunch of towels and laid them down to soak up what i could while i searched through the cupboards. found some spray carpet cleaner and lined the area i could, which used up the entire canister.

i now have towels on top of the spot and zero carpet cleaner left. i have time to run to the store to get something, but cleaning carpets is not exactly my area of expertise.

my roommate is gonna be pissed when he comes back with his date.

guess i'm going to buy one of those wet vacs tomorrow.

sheesh...i guess i got too confident in my brewing. damn carpet.

:mad:

/end rant. thanks for reading :D
 
I rented mine from Kroger (Local Large-Chain Grocer). It cost me about $20 IIRC. I'd just rent one. They're really expensive.
Cleanup like that sucks. :(
 
the rental is a good idea. i'll look into renting while i'm at work tomorrow. we have some other spots on the carpet that could use some care, as well, mostly tracking in from the deck.

will it be ok to leave overnight? it's stained...the carpet cleaner didn't do much. should i just buy a new bottle and spray tomorrow morning before i leave? will it be ok while i'm at work?

i'm afraid if it dries it will be impossible to clean.
 
Is your carpet a light color?

The RugDoctor is what I used. It really did the trick. This thing will clean the crap out of your carpets.
 
I've got a Bissell Proheat carpet cleaner. Around $100 from Walmart. Was looking at the site to see just how much and it looks like the price has risen and didn't see my exact model either. They had one for around $150 that looked similar.

This Bissell works pretty good. It has a heater for the carpet cleaning tool, but not the upholstery tool. It's not steam though. It puts out hot water, cleaner and has a motor powered roller bar brush that scrubs the carpet while the vacuum part sucks it. Various height settings and so on. Cleaning it is a pita since the dirty water goes into a bag that is in the tank the clean water is also in. Kinda weird. Still worth the money for the job it does.

Try some 90% rubbing alcohol (red label) for a cheap cleaning fluid. Sure, your house will reek of it for a few hours, but it does a good job.
 
found a RugDoctor from these guys: Berkeley Vacuum Center

$24.95/day. not bad.

going to pick up at 11:30. was a little worried at first...my employees are both out today and the place is only open until 1:00.

my boss said he would cover for me, tho :D

this should not only take care of the one problem, but allow me to clean many other stains on the floor.

thanks for the help :rockin:
 
If the rug doctor doesn't work, got rent one of the dry carpet cleaners. They look like big floor buffers, but they have a different style of bristle. You use a dry agent or a foaming agent on the floor, and this cleaner kind of grounds it in. The advantage to this is that it really cleans deep, and you aren't adding water to your padding, which is what you really have to worry about. After a good cleaning, you just vacuum it up.

Unfortunately, with this machine, if you just hit one area, you'll have a really clean spot where everything else is a little dingier.
 
The local hardware store rents carpet machines for $16 a day. We also own a portable carpet cleaner, and an upright. We simply can't live without the upright cleaner since we own pets. With puppies and stupid old cats we use it fairly often. Not as much now that the pup is growing up, but still very much worth the $150 I didn't spend (since I found it on the side of the road on community trash day...)
 
Decojuicer said:
Unfortunately, with this machine, if you just hit one area, you'll have a really clean spot where everything else is a little dingier.
Click to expand...

i don't really mind the spots...it's not an immaculate carpet anyway. we're going to get a few key areas to pick up the stains and i think that'll be it.

i'd do the whole thing, but i don't have time to move every piece of furniture in the house today as my dad will be coming to visit wednesday and tomorrow i'm busy cleaning the brewery.

we'll thoroughly clean the carpet before we move out (if i can actually find something better and priced reasonably...we have an awesome deal and it's hard to give up rent control.)

until then, i'd just like to pick up the stains by the foam chiller, the foot and food marks by the couch, the tracks from the deck, and the massive trub by the bathroom :)
 
well, that was easy enough. rugdoctor (generic machine, actually) took care of that problem in a matter of minutes. sucked everything right out of the carpet. i used it on some other stains as well, including the dirt tracks from the deck which i thought were permanent. i'll have to get this sucker again later in the year and do the whole apt over a weekend.

thanks everyone. crisis averted!
:mug:
 
A friend of mine thought the carpet in the basement of his new house was brown until he took a rug doctor to it.

Glad it worked out for you.
 
i really should have taken before and after pictures. the parts that were cleaned are definitely whiter than the rest of the apt and the spot where the beer spilt was a dark brown :D
 
Even when your carpet looks clean the water ends up brown.

There is a dirt cartridge in these machines so they continue to look like they are working even when your carpet is clean.
 
We bought one of these two years ago.

Best money ever spent.

Bissell.gif
 

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