How to Get Gum Out of Carpet
If you have kids around the place, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll have to figure out how to get gum out of carpet. Not all bubblegum is the same, and not all gum stains are the same, so I’ll give you several options for cleaning gum out of the living room floor carpet.
The important thing is that you don’t freak out: these things happen. Besides, it’s easy to step on gum in the grocery store parking lot and track it in, so you might be the culprit, after all.
Below are several methods for getting gum of your carpet. Keep trying them, until one works.
Freezing Gum
Freezing gum often works. Once you get gum cold enough, it starts to harden, making it much easier to separate from the carpet. There are several ways to apply freezing temperatures to gum-stained carpet.
One, get a bag of ice and hold it on the gum. Hold it yourself for a couple of minutes, or place the bag over the gum for 15-20 minutes. This should make the gum completely frozen, so it becomes a matter of peeling away the gum.
Two, get canned air like you use to clean your keyboard and spray it directly onto the gum. Compressed air, when it gets cold enough, makes gum brittle. Then it becomes a matter of breaking the gum and picking it off the carpet.
Use Peanut Butter in a Pinch
How to Get Gum Out of Carpet
Peanut butter is known to change the consistency of gum, so that it’s easier to remove from the carpet. This is a gross feeling, messy looking process, but it works in a pinch.
When you finish removing the gum, use a standard carpet cleaner to remove peanut butter from the carpet. Don’t use this method too often, because peanut butter can stain some carpets.
If there is remaining gum in the carpet after the peanut butter treatment, lighter fluid is known to get out small amounts of gum, by breaking it down. Don’t use lighter fluid near an open flame or heat of any kind. Use carpet cleaner to thoroughly remove lighter fluid.
Using Carpet Cleaners on Gum Stains
Use a spray-on stain cleaner that is specifically designed to remove carpet problems like old gum. There are several industrial strength or specialty carpet cleaners which are designed to get rid of tough stains.
Goo-Gone Spray-On is another alternative. Goo Gone advertises itself as eliminating “gooey, sticky, gummy, greasy problems”. A bottle costs around $7.
De-Solv-It and Orange-Sol are two more citrus-based products that rid your carpet of troublesome stains. Both are known to break down gum stains.
Steam Clean if Nothing Else Works
If nothing else has worked – and that’s pretty unlikely – rent a carpet steamer and remove the gum from your carpet with a steam cleaner. Use the recommended cleaning solution for the steamer you’re using, go over the trouble spot time and again, and these chemicals should remove the stain.
How to Remove Gum from Carpet
Still need more help with how to remove gum from carpet? If none of the above carpet cleaning methods have worked, that isn’t gum in your carpet: it’s an alien symbiote. You’re going to need to call in the space marines. Between the ice, peanut butter, lighter fluid, carpet cleaners, enzyme cleaners and steam treatment, something is going to break down that gum and get it out of your living room.