"Noozer" writes:

Is there anything I can use to colour the carpet, that isn't too expensive?
I'm considering using a clothing dye inside of a carpet shampooer, but I'm
concerned that I won't get the colour of of the shampooer and then the
colour will come out of the carpet.

After a mishap of a college roommate involving a loose cap on a bottle
of bleach (doh!), we tried to dye a 12" diameter circle of suddenly
white carpet. The dye was RIT brand.

Despite a lot of care and feeding paid to that tiny area, the
aesthetics of the results were quite hideous. :-)

Based on that experience, I am quite pessimistic on your plan. Dying
over purple is going to nearly impossible unless you go darker, and to
be uniform, you'd have to have nearly perfect rate control as you
apply and I'm guessing that you'd end up with stripes based on
non-uniformity of the spray on the ends of the machine's nozzle.
however, if you hit it with enough dye and aim to make it black, I
suppose it could work. But then I also wonder if walking on it with
damp white socks would turn them black in perpetuity. You'll need a
LOT of dye.

I'd say learn to live with teh purple until you can afford some area
rugs or to replace the flooring.

Best Regards
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/