Removing Milk Stains

To prevent the necessity of removing milk stains from carpet, clean them up while they are merely spills. A wet/dry vacuum cleaner helps with this. Otherwise grab a towel or paper towels and sop up as much as you can quickly. Plain white paper towels or cotton cloths are best, because some dyes can transfer to carpet.

Flush the area with water and then extract the water. Do that again... and again. That's the basic recipe for removing milk stains. Of course, the "stain" might not be visible in any case if the carpet is beige-colored. It is the potential odor that is often the bigger problem. So do the following as well...

If the milk dried - if you discovered the spill long after the fact - scrape out any chunks and flakes using the edge of a teaspoon. Then use the following procedure for both this and fresh spills.

Make a mix of dish washing detergent and water (1/8 teaspoon in two cups of warm water). Use a spray bottle if you have one, and apply this mixture numerous times, letting it soak in a bit before blotting it up each time using white paper towels or a white cotton cloth, or sucking it out with a wet/dry vacuum cleaner.

If you don't get all the milk out, you might have an odor problem. A professional carpet cleaner can easily take care of that for you, or you can try repeating the process above to remove more of the milk. A carpet freshener can help too. The powdered ones are just sprinkled into the area and later vacuumed out. Baking soda might work as well, absorbing some of the odors.

Put your nose close to the spot a few days later to see if there is any remaining odor. Removing milk stains is as much about removing the odor as it is about visible stains. If you do hire a cleaner, be sure to show him or her exactly where the milk was spilled so that area can be soaked and extracted more thoroughly.