Free Household Appliance

[BonnyLake]

I just discovered that I have a free carpet cleaner already in my house - and it is a "Steam Cleaner"! It's my steam iron - it can be used to remove stains on carpets and upholstery >>

1) new stain - soak up any residue with a clean towel
2) old or new stains ~ in a bowl - mix together a little ammonia or peroxide with a cup of water and a few drops of dish soap
3) soak a white washcloth or similar in the mixture and ring out
4) put the cloth on the stain and lay the steam iron (turned to High steam) on top of the stain - move around slowly
5) stain will be soaked up into the towel - repeat to get the whole stain

This actually works great! My "new" place had old stains in the carpet and I've used a cleaner on them constantly for 6 months and they still come back so I have wasted all that money and time. Also - this is a more portable way to spot treat - no heavy machine to load with cleaner and rinse out...

Hopefully this will get them and it's free!!

[fancy1]

Wow, thank you! There are a couple of "trouble spots" on ours as well and I'll try this in the morning.

[TEX]

Does this mean I have to dust off my Iron:girl_cray3:? Guess not since I don't have carpet - all hardwood floors. But a great tip none the less.

Thanks

[JoAnna]

I wonder how it would work to get grease out of my dh's jeans? I often treat his jeans with ammonia, soap and very hot water, but it's a problem getting water hot enough to do much good. What comes out of the hot water heater isn't hot enough and I"m not about to crank up the temp on it and risk scalding the kids, so I often boil a pot or two of water and dump in the washer to get the water really hot.

I wonder if I could soak his jeans for a while, then treat with ammonia and apply a fairly warm iron with steam to the legs and then put them back in the washer?

I really try to clean his clothes as best I can, to make them last longer. I know that nothing is likely to get out all the grease, but if something could get most of it out, I'd be happy. I'm talking about motor grease, oil, diesel, etc.

Also, I've used an iron in the past to get crayon out of the kids clothes, when one decided to color his pant legs.

[BonnyLake]

To get out grease and oil on my jeans I use a little of the orange hand cleaner that has the pumice sand in it - works pretty good!

My water isn't hot enough either so I add a squeeze or two of reconstituted lemon juice when something is really oily in my dishwasher, dishpan and a small load in the wash - this actually works better then dawn dish soap on buttery or shortening goop on plastic and glass bowls and it's frugal as all-get-out!

[keydl]

Several ways to pull grease from cotton - 2 of my favorite.

Any waterless hand cleaner at knock off time - it soaks until the laundry bag is loaded and will change the color on new stuff.

Sodium bicarbonate presoak - they come off and drop into a bucket until laundry day.

Waterless hand cleaner used to scrub the marks does not change the color on most but takes more time than I want to spend looking to find the spots and then scrub them.

Used differential, used diesel engine oil (esp synthetic) and moly grease I have not been able to get out of cotton or blends.

[Nancymw]

Thanks so much for the info - now I have a use for that pesky iron!!!!