"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 11:26:31 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

If a carpet of the normal house kind ie not one meant for a bathroom,
which
are designed to get wet, gets wet, how is the best way to dry it and stop
it
from rotting?
May seem daft, and I know that if its polluted water from a naff central
heating leak or a flood where more than just a bit of rain is involved its
probably a throw it away job, but it was just that I do have the odd
accident with fluids and wondered if simply using a fan heater on it or
throwing it over a radiator might do the trick. I'm interested in stains
and
smell, in the main.
Brian

Assuming you can't lift it and hang it up somewhere to dry, get some
dry towels or flannels, put them down on the wet patch and tread on
them. It may sound contradictory, but it brings the wetness up into
the towel. After you've done that two or three times, moving the towel
around a bit to expose a fresh dry part, repeat with a new dry towel.
Finish off by repeating the process with sheets of kitchen roll, until
they come up nearly dry. Then blow cool air over the damp patch of
carpet until it's completely dry.

It was my late wife's technique, and it always seemed to work very
effectively.

Also, if you happen to have a wet-and-dry vacuum cleaner or a carpet
cleaner, you could use that to absorb the bulk of the water before going on
to the towels and kitchen roll.

Incidentally, don't use light-coloured towels with a dark carpet, as they
may become stained with the dye from the carpet - or with dirt that
inevitably gets into carpets.