The moment that the painters left our house, the carpet cleaners showed up. I figured that I should go ahead and have the dirty carpet in the living room cleaned while all of the furniture was out of the room. Smart, right?
Well, the carpet guy pointed out a few rust spots on our carpet, and he said, “I can’t remove rust.” I have an iron table and a sofa with a metal base – both of which had gotten one of the kids’ drinks spilled on it and it rusted. No big deal, I thought.
But then, I started seeing on the internet where people were able to get rust stains out of their carpet with DIY methods. Why could regular people do it and the carpet cleaner wouldn’t attempt it? Hmmmm….
So, I set out to test the internet advice to see what would work. I started with this rust stain that was made from the iron table.
The first thing I read said to use lemon juice. So, I squeezed a puddle of bottled lemon juice onto the stain and let it sit for about 5 minutes per the instructions.
Then, I blotted up the lemon juice with a white towel. The lemon juice didn’t make much of a difference in my rust stain. It looks different in the below image, because the fibers were moved around from my blotting.
Then, I moved onto white vinegar. As per the internet instructions, I poured a puddle of white vinegar onto the stain and let it sit for 45 minutes.
After I blotted away the vinegar, I saw that it was a tiny bit lighter in color, but the stain was still there.
Then, I decided that maybe I knew more than the internet. I grabbed my go-to stain fighting friend, Krud Kutter
I sprayed it on the stain and worked it into the carpet with my fingers.
Then, I wiped up the cleaner with a wet cloth. It looked like this.
Now we were getting somewhere! Krud Kutter wins again. After the carpet was dry, you could barely tell where the rust stain had been at all.
I’m thinking I might need to give the carpet cleaner a bottle of Krud Kutter the next time I see him. 😉
Do you have any rust stains on your carpet? Have you ever tried to remove them? What worked for you?
I would have tried Stain Devils Rust formula: http://amzn.com/B006K3S57G. My oldest needed liquid iron supplements as a toddler. He hated it and would spit it out everywhere. I’ve tried a lot of these and the Stain Devil is fastest and least fiddly. Though the lemon juice + sunlight is OK.
Ah – I didn’t know that they had a rust formula! I was just so surprised that the carpet guy wouldn’t even try to remove it.
I use Krud Kutter (diluted) to clean my carpets. Then I rinse (a lot) with diluted vinegar. Works great!
Oh, that’s a great idea! I love Krud Kutter – it works so well!
Brilliant! I have a few pieces of furniture with little metal wheels and sure enough, they’ve left rust stains on the carpet. I’ll have to get some Krud Kutter.
Also, in that last picture, I can’t see where the stain was at all. You might be seeing something just because you know where it was. I think it’s gone!
Oh, good! You are probably right – I can’t see it on the carpet when I go to look now.
Which krud kutter did you use
I think lemon juice only works to remove rust stains if sunlight hits it. I have used it successfully on clothing and towels that sat too long in our old dryer and got rust stains. But I will definitely be looking up Krud Kutter. Can’t always get the sun on the rust spot.
Good to know! Thanks, Bonnie!
You might want to be careful about leaving colored clothing in the sun too long. One of the things our clothes dryers have made us forget (or never learn) is that sun fades colors, most noticeably dark colors. On the bright side, the sun makes white clothes really white!
That’s true! My son leaves his backpack on the window seat in our kitchen, and I noticed yesterday that it has faded considerably by just being in the window.
I went to amazon.com to find this, but there are several variations. Which Krud Kutter did you use? Thanks!
Hi Lisa- I just use the original one in the spray bottle: http://www.krudkutter.com/index.php?option=com_products&task=product&pid=4&Itemid=62 I had no idea that there were so many different formulas, now!
Carbona makes a bunch of different stain removers. They are called Stain Devil and there is one for rust. There are 9 different kinds. The label on the front tells you what they are good for.
Thank you so much for your information regarding rust and Krud Kutter….. it works!!!! The rust stains are gone!! I am beyond thrilled!! Guess the professional carpet cleaning company was wrong!!
The movers just emptied the house of everything and I am staring at a nice black stain left by the leg of our metal table. I was reading about using lemon and vinegar, but don’t have any. Then I found this thread next and guess what!…. I have Krud Kutter sitting in a box of liquids they weren’t able to take! I am so glad you shared this info with us all! It made my day, and saved my deposit!! ??♀️❤️
THANK YOU!!!
I have an outdoor rug that I absolutely love. Unfortunately, a metal table left quite a few rust stains from the rain on the rug. I had a little Krud Kutter and tried it on a corner and voila!!! the rust stains are gone. I’m off to the store to get more. thanks for the post.
Undoubtedly it is a great product. But I like to use Portable Vacuum Carpet Cleaner (Professional grade). It can take care of everything about my carpet