[Closed] Help - oily stain on the carpet

I'd try brake cleaner first.

Mrs RT suggests...

Washing up liquid.

Swarfega type stuff.

Meths.

PS Dont rush,  confess to Mrs or you could make the patch worse. She will notice whatever you do.

PPS No chance if its a white shagpile 😉

we use WD 40 to remove oil and glue from the carpets we fit if we get some on

very spareingly on a clean rag and work from the outside of the stain

it is our go to solvent for most things

I use a natural degreaser that cleans drivetrains. Put some on a piece of kitchen towel and using a rolling motion it should pull it out the carpet. Don't rub or you'll spread it around. Repeat with clean towel until it's gone

WD40 is a great shout. Been told by my mother that baking soda is a shout too, currently soaking it in that, will attack with other stuff shortly.

I've successfully used washing up liquid.

Methylated spirit does the job.  Dab or wipe it with a rag that's wetted with meths.  Keep doing it with a clean bit of cloth.  This removed a black oily mark from a wool carpet.

+1 washing up liquid

Leave it be. Find one of her shoes and wipe a sticky oily mixture on the sole. Let her go off on one, deny all knowledge then make sure she finds her shoe a little bit later.

in the past I've used a detergent to break down the oil. Lots of it. Fairy liquid or something like that...give it a good soaking dabbing with a sponge, probably take a good few goes and my never get rid of it totally but I've had success in the past.

@Trout, you are a genius. Soaked the strains for an hour in baking soda then attacked what was left with WD40 and is cleaned it without fuss. Found an old stain that is cleared up as well.

Now left with some bog standard carpet mousse to, rather sadly, get rid of the WD40 smell.

panic over.

Best thing to do with wd40 is stick the straw into the stain and pad around with toilet paper over the top. The straw puts the wd40 at the bottom of the pile then the toilet paper draws it up through the stained pile carrying the oil with it. You then need to clean the wd40 with some regular cleaner to get rid of the smell.

I doubt baking soda did anything tbh.

I doubt baking soda did anything tbh.

Not the case. It took the majority of it up (that was the solution Google suggested), the WD40 got the worst that was left. In truth WD40 may well have sorted it on its own but The soda definitely did some work.

Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Now left with some bog standard carpet mousse to, rather sadly, get rid of the WD40 smell.

panic over.

Well until she notices how clean that bit of carpet is....

Go On, you will be fine, just a little more

Well until she notices how clean that bit of carpet is….

I dealt with that issue by only getting oil on the new, very clean carpet. Thinking in advance you see...

We all know what happens to the smug ones who think they have it all covered

They end up logging in alaska with dodgy beards?

glad to be of asistance  and ref the smell just give a few door hinges a drop and say they were squeakling

glad to be of asistance  and ref the smell just give a few door hinges a drop and say they were squeakling

You've done this before haven't you? Brilliant.

You've got to love STW! A couple of months back me daugher up ended a bottle of some sort of bath oil (why does humanity need such a thing?) on our bedroom carpet. If I can shift it I will win many Brownie Points that will go some way towards reducing my current massive stash of Unreliable Arsehole Points.

You need Sudacreme, lots.

For bath type oil I'd say soap.  You could try plain soap flakes, or if that fails then use washing up liquid.  Washing up liquid is the only thing that gets food grease or mineral oil stains out of my clothes - works better than any of the stain removal things you can buy.

Wet the carpet and apply the WUL, agigate, then to get it out you need something more absorbent than the carpet.  So put a really dry towel on top then tread all over it. Your weight will squeeze the water out of the carpet and the towel, being more absorbent, will suck more of the water up than the carpet.  You could also try bog paper under the towel.

You may have to repeat this a few times because you cannot effectively rinse.  Unless you have one of those VAX carpet cleaners which can be had for £60 or so.  They are essentially just wet vacs with a squirty water nozzle.  You could probably get a used one from ebay.  Or hand-held ones are only like £40 new.  You can still wet the carpet however you like - the suction is just to get rid of the water that should now contain the oil.