Nate Nagel wrote:
Pete C. wrote:
Dan Espen wrote:
Nate Nagel writes:

Anyone have any luck getting a presumably coffee stain out of white
Berber carpet? (yeah, I know...) bought myself one of those carpet
cleaning doomajiggers after I got my bonus check, and tried it out on
a section of the carpet that'd been stained when I had a little
incident with leaving for a couple days right when the T/P valve on my
water heater decided to start leaking. That part came up perfect,
amazingly enough, so I decided to try to actually get this carpet
looking decent rather than go straight to "rip it up and start
scraping up the ****ty tile underneath" like I'd planned.

So I have this coffee-colored stain in one corner of the room. Small,
but it's a stain nonetheless. I figured it wasn't going to come up
but I ran the carpet cleaner over it and it disappeared. Set up fan
to blow over area. Next day, it's back. Tried a vinegar solution, it
disappeared again, ran the carpet cleaner over it, set up fan. Next
day, it's back. Tried a bleach solution. Ran carpet cleaner over
it. It's drying now, but based on previous experience, I'm guessing it
will show up again once it's dry.

Any ideas? Also, how can a brown stain on white carpet disappear
seemingly as soon as water hits it, but come right back again once
it's dry?
Vinegar is the right solution.
I've used it with success.
The fact that it appears to work but then comes back
indicates that it is
cleaning the stain but then more coffee is coming up from
below.

I think the right solution is some more persistence.

I think you need to pull up that section of carpet to see what you're
dealing with underneath.

Meh... I don't care that much. Carpet needs to go anyway *eventually,*
e.g. when I a) can afford to buy new tile and an area rug (this is a
basement, after all) and b) when I feel motivated to scrape up all the
old tile and scrub the floor underneath.

nate

I've had decent luck, at least on clothing stains, with Oxyclean and
it's look-alikes. I think they also make a carpet cleaner, or you could
maybe use the regular kind in a spray bottle. I also agree it sounds
like there is more stain underneath of the carpet, perhaps saturating
the padding or backing, that gets wicked back to the surface. And keep
using the carpet cleaner thing, since it sounds like you may need to get
more cleaning solution down into the padding/backing *and* then be able
to suck it out good.

Just checked and the oxyclean site says their "carpet spot & stain
remover" works on coffee stains. Also I found a number of reports online
from people who put oxyclean IN the steamer and said it works. The only
problem is that with the other things you've tried, I wonder if it's
possible they have helped "set" the stain.

Good luck. Let us know if you get it out.