What to Do If Your Rug Smells of Mold

Summer means fun in the sun, great weather, and plenty of warmth. But it also means humidity and moisture – which turns more and more to rain as the year progresses. While your garden loves this water, your carpentry, furniture, house and rug certainly don’t. Worst case scenario, your rugs can develop a musty, mildew smell that stinks up your house. Don’t worry though, no need to call a professional cleaner yet! Instead, there are two DIY solutions you can try first to get rid of the smell.

Old Fashioned Cleaning

You probably have plenty of baking soda on hand for cooking, but it also has a few cleaning uses! It’s a well-known DIY trick that baking soda can absorb foul odors. Many moms make great use of baking soda to clean the odor from stinky shoes! Well, you can use that baking soda here too. Before you get to cleaning, make sure your rug is completely dry – you won’t achieve much by pouring baking soda on a damp rug! Once it’s dry, pour a generous amount (you’re aiming for a pretty thick layer) of baking soda evenly over the smelly area. Press it into your rug gently to get between the fibers. From there, you want to leave the baking soda in the fibers overnight, or better still for a couple of days. After that, just vacuum up the baking soda and check the smell. If that’s not enough, or if you want to have a fun chemistry experiment too, you can always try the classic vinegar – baking soda reaction. Vinegar itself is a common household DIY cleaning agent, but it’s also useful for absorbing smells. You can pour the vinegar directly onto the rug or pour it over the baking soda from the previous attempt. After a while, add some baking soda (not too much this time) and let the bubbles foam.

Boring but Practical

The even more obvious solution, if you’re okay with spending some money, is to go to the store and pick up some foaming carpet cleaner. Spray some of the spot cleaner on the location that smells, and scrub away. Leave the rug to dry – preferably up on a rack so it gets good air circulation – for about 20 minutes. Be sure to scrub every spot that got wet earlier, as mold and mildew spread quickly. If these DIY solutions don’t work, you may want to bring your rug to a professional cleaner – untreated mold can be a serious health hazard, so don’t treat this lightly!