Wet Carpet

Hazys

No idea if this is the right forum, so mods move this if its not appropriate, thanks.


Im renting an appartment and i came home from work to find the humidifer in my room had leaked, spilling about a gallon of water onto the carpet in my bedroom last wednesday.

I dried it up the best i could and thought nothing off it till i came home on the saturday night and the smell was disgusting. The affected area which is about 3sq feet seemed dry so i put a feck load of baking soda on it Monday night. I still havent hoover up the baking soda because the smell is still so bad (i can smell it from 2 rooms away).

I'm presuming that the water has seeped tru the carpet and has gone underneath. I cant pull the carpet it up because its seems like its stuck down so i cant get underneath to dry it.

The carpet is one piece that goes tru the whole appartment so it would be a major job to fix and would come out of my deposit.

Today before leaving for work i turned the heating up as high as i could...hopefully that could help dry underneath.

Any ideas how to fix it? and get rid of the ridiculous smell?

snugglebear

i know you said you can't pull up the carpet, but if you could you could try putting newspaper underneath it, that worked for me with a leaky radiator, I'd make sure the carpet is completly dry before you tackle the smell, maybe try and rent a carpet cleaner :rolleyes:

mrgaa1

if your carpet, in general, feels like theres a bit of give in it there is probably a cheap rubber underlay underneath it. This will mean that the carpet is attached to wooden tack strips around the perimeter at the skirting. It will pull up with a bit of perseverance.
The smell is probably the underlay being wet and then drying out. So by upping the heat you've exasperated the issue. the water is probably trapped underneath.
If you have a window in the room open it and try and get the carpet up.

tara73

not too familiar with humidifiers but my first gues is that the water which probably was in it for a long time is dirty and rotten and causing the smell.

non sterilized water rots in a few days and the older it gets the more disgusting the smell.

I agree with the others, you should try and get the carpet off, should be possible in a cautious way, try to figure out how and where it's fixed.

might be worth throwing out the 'infected' bit at all as not sure if the smell will ever disappear.
You can try carpet cleaner as well, did it once, can't really remember where I got it but try tesco or diy stores. It's a powder which you pour on the carpet for some hours and then hoover it up. Cleans a bit and gives a nice fresh smell.

Hazys

I turned the heat up in the apartment to the max one day while i was at work and left the baking soda on it for a couple more days and left the windows open and it seems to have done the trick. There is only a v faint smell off the carpet, so hopefully that will go away with time.

Thanks for your help.