(g) Cleansing Carpets.—Put 4 tablespoonfuls ammonia to 1 bucketful of water, with soap, scrubbing-brush, and cloth; scrub and wash the carpet just as you would an unpainted floor, changing the water frequently. Leave the windows open, and the carpet will soon dry. In cities where bituminous coal is used, carpets are scrubbed as regularly as wooden floors, and with happy effects. Instead of taking up a carpet every 6 weeks during the winter, as some in muddy districts think necessary, a careful wiping every week of the carpet with a mop wrung from clean water will remove the dust and brighten the colours. A thorough sweeping should precede this wiping-up.
(h) Carpets may be washed on tables or on the floor. In either case they must be taken up and well beaten and swept. Grease is taken out by rubbing hard soap on the spot, and scrubbing it out with a brush dipped in clean cold water. Each spot must be rubbed dry with a cloth as it is washed. Dissolve a bar of soap in 2 gal. water, by cutting it into the water and heating to a boil. Lay the carpet on the floor and tack it down, or have a heavy board, 3 ft. wide by 12 ft. long, laid on stout stands, or horses, and throw the carpet over that, keeping a clean board or sheet underneath to receive the carpet as it is cleansed. Provide brushes, and a quantity of coarse cotton cloths, flannels, and a large sponge. Take 2 pails filled with blood-warm water, put 2 qt. of the melted soap into one of them to scour the carpet with, and use the other for rinsing. Dip the brush in the soapsuds, and scour a square yard of the carpet at a time, using as little water as possible, not to soak it through. When the soap has done its work, rub it well out of the carpet with a flannel or coarse sponge, sucking up with these all the wet and dirt left by the brush, rinsing the article used in clean water repeatedly. Have ready a pail of clean cold water, with enough sulphuric acid or sharp vinegar in it to taste sour; dip a clean sponge in this, squeeze and rub it well into the spot just cleansed. Afterward wipe dry with coarse cloths, rinsing and hanging them where they will be dry when the next yard is washed. Finish yard after yard in this way, rubbing each clean and dry as you go. Keep a good fire in the room to dry the carpet thoroughly. If scoured on a frame, nail the carpet against the side of a house in the sun to dry. This is a tedious, but thorough process. Hearth rugs may be cleaned in the same way, beating and brushing them well, and tacking on a large board before washing. Scrub one-sixth of it at a time unless you are expeditious, and dry well with an old sheet. The secret of having carpets look well is to wash and rinse them thoroughly, without soaking them through. Ingrain, tapestry, Brussels, and Turkish carpets are all cleaned in this way. Good authorities recommend a teacupful of ox-gall to a pail of soapsuds, rinsing with clean water.
(i) Removing Grease Stain.—To take oil out of a carpet, as soon as it is spilled put on plenty of wheat flour or whiting, to absorb the oil and keep it from spreading. If the oil is near a seam, rip it, so that the spot will not spread, and put whiting on the floor under the carpet. Next day sweep up all the flour above and under the carpet with a stiff brush, and put on plenty of fresh flour. To take out grease spots, rub them with white flannel dipped in raw spirits of turpentine. If they show after a while, rub again on both sides. If there are grease spots on the floor, remove them with potters’ clay before the carpet is laid down.
(j) Ditto.—Upon the grease stain lay a little damp fullers’ earth, and, after standing for some time, rub it gently into the carpet, and then wash off by using a little ammonia carbonate, and the colour will be restored.
(k) Following are systems adopted by professional carpet cleaners.
All carpets and hearth-rugs, whether intended for dry or thorough cleaning, must first be well beaten, and swept or brushed with a hard broom. A carpet, to be properly beaten, should be hung on a stout line, the wrong side outwards, and well beaten by two or more persons, according to its size, some standing on one side and some on the other. The sticks used should be pliable, and well covered at the ends with cloth in the form of a knot in order to prevent the carpet being torn or the seams split by the sharp ends of the sticks. After being thoroughly beaten on the wrong side, the carpet should be turned and treated in the same manner on the right side.
Dry Cleaning.—Have ready a number of dry coarse cotton or linen cloths, some coarse flannels, and one or more large pieces of coarse sponge; two or more hard scrubbing or scouring brushes, some large tubs or pans, and pails, and also a plentiful supply of both hot and cold water.
First take out all grease spots; this may be effected in several ways. Well rub the spot with a piece of hard soap, and wash out with a brush and cold water, and well dry each spot before leaving it.
Or use, instead of the soap, a mixture of fullers’ earth, gall, and water, well rinsing and drying each spot as before. When this has been done, the carpet may be cleaned by one of the three following methods:—
(1) With Soap Liquor.—Cut up a bar of soap and dissolve it over a fire in 2 gal. water. Put 2 qt. of this dissolved soap into a pail of warm water. Dip a scrubbing-brush into this soap liquor, and scour with it about 1 sq. yd. of the carpet; be careful not to let the liquor soak through to the back. When this piece is thoroughly cleaned, rub the soap well out of it by means of a coarse flannel or sponge, sucking up all the wet and dirt made by the brush; rinse the flannel or sponge frequently in warm water. Now take a clean sponge and dip it into a pail of common sour, squeeze it out, and then rub the sour well into the part just cleaned and rinsed. Rub as dry as possible with clean, coarse cotton or linen cloths before proceeding with the cleaning. The whole carpet is to be cleaned, spirited, and dried in the same manner, a square yard at a time.