If you have ever had the misfortune to smell milk that has gone off you will know it is not something that you would voluntarily assault your nostrils with. A worst-case scenario than that is when milk has been spilled on to a carpet and dried in, meaning that some pretty serious cleaning from a professional grade cleaning company needs to take place.
Hopefully, you have never had that experience, however, knowing what to do if it should occur, will not only be welcomed by your carpet, but we dare say the sense of smell of everyone who enters your home will be thankful.
The way in which milk ends up on a carpet can differ, be it from someone drinking from a milk carton instead of glass and it dribbling down their chin, someone knocking over a glass of milk, or babies, who, let’s face it, while they are gorgeous, they are also messy little darlings and take great delight in turning their bottle upside down, with the result that their milk ends up on the carpet below, drip by drip.
Whatever the reason, the cause, or the person to blame, if milk is spilled on your carpet you do not want it to be there for any length of time. The reason for that is that whilst milk may be a healthy drink, a number of the natural compounds that it contains, are not carpet-friendly.
Whilst this is not meant to be an exercise in teaching you nutrition, milk contains proteins and fats. The problem with this for carpets is that fats and proteins tend to adhere to anything which they come into contact with, and thus if there is any delay in cleaning up spilt milk, it is going to be more difficult in the long tun to remove.
Another reason that cleaning spilt milk immediately is desirable is that it will dry quickly. In most people’s experience, trying to clean up a dried milk stain takes a lot more effort than cleaning up the milk whilst it is still wet.
If the milk is simply left there are going to be a number of problems created, For a start, as milk is a liquid it is going to soak through the fibres and into the backing of the carpet. Obviously, the deeper it goes, the harder it is going to be to remove.
Worse still, is where is it soaks through the backing to the underlay or the floor surface underneath, where being able to reach there with any kind of cleaner to remove the milk is extremely difficult, and often impossible.
So, with time of the essence, the first step is to soak up any spilled milk quickly, but do not rub the carpet with a cloth as this simply spreads the liquid milk. Instead, use an absorbent towel. You could try pouring on some warm water in order to dilute the milk somewhat, but do not use too much. Once the carpet has dried sprinkle some baking soda, which may help mask any remaining odours.
For milk stains that have dried, there are enzyme-based carpet cleaners that help break down the fats and proteins we mentioned previously, to sperate them from the carpet fibres. Despite all these cleaning methods usually working, it could be that no matter how hard you try, the odour of dried milk remains, and at this point, you may need to call on professional carpet cleaners to rid your carpets of them for good.
