Enjoying a banana split on a hot summer afternoon, or having a birthday party with all your kid’s friends can be a great time, but inevitably somebody’s going to spill strawberry ice cream on your carpet. Hopefully, whoever does it will tell you right away so you can get started cleaning it up as soon as possible, time is of the essence, especially with spills like ice cream. Let’s take a look at some emergency procedures that you can use to clean the stain and prevent any long-term damage.
Ice cream can present a different set of problems than other stains because of its frozen nature, in other words the faster you can clean it up, the less of it melts, and the better off you’ll be. Immediately jump into action with a fresh dry towel and use a fork to carefully lift the frozen ice cream up out of the carpet and onto the towel. Continue until as much of the ice cream that can be lifted with a fork has been. Now, get another towel and begin rolling the towel in a reverse motion while moving it forward into the spill in order to pull as much of the melted ice cream out of the carpet and onto the towel as possible. Remember no rubbing in order not to push the ice cream deeper into the pile.
You should now have the major portion of the ice cream up off your carpet, but your work’s not over yet, get another towel and a spray bottle with liquid dish soap mixed with water for your next step. Spray the liquid dish soap with water combination onto the area of the spill, then dab with the clean portion of the towel until all of the liquid is up. Repeat this process several times, always using a fresh dry part of the towel to do your dabbing, while watching to see if the towel is still picking up ice cream. Even after you’re pretty sure all of the ice cream is up, spray one more time, then towel one more time just to be sure there’s nothing left deep down in the fibers.
One little ice cream spill doesn’t have to ruin your whole party, but if you’re going to have kids eating ice cream and cake on your carpet, it might be a good idea to keep fresh towels and a spray bottle of cleaning mixture ready for any emergency that might happen.
