[Les]

Hi all,

I had to go and look at this stain the other day.

It had happened on Christmas Day when the little girl was playing with her Christmas present....
a Dolls Hairdressing Kit, complete with various coloured Hair Dyes 

This was the 'Violet' hair dye.
The packet does state that the colours can stain or damage fabrics and carpets...
well at least it does what it says on the tin !

I did a quick test with a couple of stain removers, obviously without success.

The property is rented hence the tennants concern. They would be happy even if the stain was a little less obvious. I did wonder about the use of peroxide, but having not used it previously I thought i'd ask you guys first.

any suggestions please ?

Les



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[markpowell]

Les,
I would try Red RX using the heat transfer method, i have had great success over the years on a number of dye stains.
Mark

[Les]

Thanks Mark

I did consider Red Rx which I haven't used for a long time.

I wondered if the stain might be a bit too far gone for it, but failing any other advice coming forward I will probably give it a go.

Les

[derek west]

as a newbie, i'd risk sodium met, using the iron and damp towel method, very cautiously though.
derek

[John Kelly]

Try Red RX failing that Hydrogen Peroxide and dry with a hair dryer. Test small area first as always.

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

Depending upon the quality or the rental property and the location of the stain you may wish to consider a "cookie" cutter and/or cut the offending piece out and replace with carpet from elsewhere in the room.

Definitely an "if all else fails" option. But don't forget until such time as you start to mess with it the stain is the clients problem not yours. These things can often bite you when the person commissioning the clean is not the actual owner of the carpet.

[Les]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I had mentioned to the customer that one option could be an invisible  repair which I have seen done before and very good it looked too, where a flowerpot had rotted the carpet underneath.

The only problem is that the room has no cupboards where a spare piece could be found to use.

On a plus side for the customer, there are various other stains on the carpet which are just as bad and look very aged. Just not pink 

I said that I'll have another go at reducing the damage and they can use the fact of the other stains to barter with when they decide to move out.

The carpets were 'supposedly' cleaned by another cleaning company  prior to them moving in just before christmas, but from what I've seen they didn't do a brilliant job.

Finally, the customer has rung me again to say that her son has now got shoe polish over the lounge carpet and rug 

I'd better set them up with a Direct Debit 

Les

[will01]

les:

After reading your posts my gut instinct would be to wipe your hands of their problem before it becomes your problem.

I would've become suspicious of the customers' intent after she called you about the shoe polish. 

I would be very wary of being made a scapegoat here. The customer may be trying to get you to attempt to remove more stains,  then whenever she's moving out and the landlord remarks on the carpets' condition she can lie and say "Well I had the carpet cleaned by some yahoo who not only made the stains worse but also must have set them"

Landlord then calls you and opens the proverbial can of worms.

Probably me being to suspicious but that's me.

[Les]

Strangely enough I first met the people when called to the house they were selling.

They had a 'strange' stain in their sons bedroom, (easy now) .

It turned out to be a serious of tiny blue specks, which when touched would become a nice large blob of blue 

We could never pinpoint the source but my suspicion was that it was the fibres from a blue feltip pen.

Really strange but I eventually removed them all.

She was very impressed and obviously now thinks that I'm some sort of miracle worker 

She's really just a bit of a worrier, but appreciates my uhhmm, unbiased advice 

I'm not too worried about the shoe polish, but do expect to return as her son seems to be rather accident prone, ( 'we'd call it out of control').

Les

[John Kelly]

You are right there Les. Fibre pens can be a nightmare. They may only touch a few carpet fibres but the ink wicks down them into the backing and hey presto along comes the cleaner who wets the carpet and the Blue Lagoon appears. Problem is sometimes this doesn't happen until you've left site and as the carpet dries the colour wicks up.