TIPS How To Get Stains Out Of a Rug

Looking for my best secret to get stains out of a rug? Here’s what I used to keep all my upholstery and area rugs and carpets clean.

Come a little bit closer my wonderful friend because we are keeping it real here today.

See this stain?

Can we still be friends if I tell you that I’ve walked past it on the stairs for over six months? And there are two more just like it going up to the middle landing. It’s like unwelcome house guests that just won’t leave.

Sigh.

Can you believe I walked past this for six months?

Every day I told myself that I would take care of it and every day I stepped over it and went to watch Judge Judy. Stains like this are SUCH stubborn stains. Have you ever met stains like that?

See how it’s all smeared into the rug from attempts to clean it up?

I thought it was hopeless after six months.

I thought I was going to have to get new runners for the stairs.

I thought I’d never get it to leave.

And then?

I did a little research and tried a few things and figured out a solution and now this SIX-MONTH stain looks like this.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Are you as surprised as I am?

Can we please give the runner a dolphin clap and a standing ovation?

And I cleaned the rest of the runner, too, and now it looks almost as good as the day we had it installed.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison so you can see the before and after of the stair runner.

One of my favorite before and afters.

You can see that not only is the stain completely gone, but the carpet and upholstery cleaner that I used actually sucked the dirt and grime out of the carpet so it raised the loops of the carpet to make it look like new again.

And the upholstery cleaner is on sale today for one of the lowest prices I’ve ever seen.

You can see it here.

But what about that stain on the landing carpet?

Here’s what it looked like before I cleaned it.

And now?

It looks like this.

I wish you could have heard me when I started cleaning it. I was so excited I started yelling and my husband ran in because he thought something was wrong.

And then he started watching the carpet get cleaner and cleaner and cleaner.

How To Get Stains Out Of a Rug

We spent the next hour dragging this all over the house and cleaning all the spots that needed to be cleaned (I’m looking at you Buddy) until the water chamber was completely empty and the gunk had collected on the other side.

And what is this miracle worker?

It was recommended to me by several different people. It’s called the Little Green by Bissell and you can see it here.

(total aside: mine is a little older so it looks slightly different. I’ve had it for years and I lvoe it. This is the newer version that’s on sale right now.)

Just between us? I think I may be the last person on this planet to hear about it.

I told my friend about it–they have it and use it.

I told someone else about it—they have it and use it.

I wish I had found this back when we lived in the farmhouse with all that mud.

It’s SUPER lightweight and easy to use.

There are two chambers on each side.

One is for the water and cleaner (there’s a line that shows you exactly how much water and a line that shows you exactly how much cleaner).

And the other chamber is for all the stuff that you vacuum out of the area rug or upholstery.

This is the cleaner that I used.

A small bottle of it came with the Little Green.

You can see the larger bottle that sells separately here.

You unscrew the top and add the cleaner to fill up the container to the line.

Then you add water and fill that to the line in the container that’s marked for water.

That’s it.

Then plug it in and turn it on and it’s ready to use.

There’s a little squirter thing at the bottom of the nozzle.

You squirt the water/cleaner mixture onto the stain.

I let it sit for a couple of seconds to soak into the rug.

Then you pull the suction part of the nozzle across the rug.

I repeated this several times until the stain was gone. There were a couple of parts of the stain that I had to scrub with the bristles at the bottom of the nozzle.

I wish I could show you on the blog the suction on the nozzle. It was so fascinating. I filmed a video you can see over on my Instagram channel if you want to see the suction in action. You can literally see the dirt getting sucked up into the Little Green machine.

Here are a couple of tips that I discovered using it all over the house:

pull the nozzle slowly toward you for the best suction
I was constantly spraying the solution and vacuuming it up for the best results
if the stain doesn’t come up immediately, don’t give up—spray and repeat
there are little bristles on the bottom of the nozzle to give you extra suction power
it works on upholstery as well as area rugs and spot-cleaning carpet
make sure not to walk on the spots you’ve cleaned until they are completely dry

This machine is a GAME CHANGER.

I can’t believe the stains it got up all over the house.

It’s my new go-to in the cleaning helper department.

And take your carpets from this.

To this.

Let me know if you’ve used it before (like all my friends) and if you have any tips with it that I missed.

Carpet cleaners have to stick together.

Can anyone else relate?

PS Here are some of my other favorite cleaning posts: