This article is for me, not you. Why? Because I hate the smell of fish and would rather empower you to get rid of the smell of fish in your own carpet.
It saves me and my nose a trip while saving you money, win win! So, without further ado, let’s look at how to remove that fishy stain and it’s odour from your carpet.
Steps for removing a fish stained carpet and it’s smell
Remove as much of the juice as possible
Spray with a an enzyme cleaner
Dry the area
Repeat step 2 if an odour persists
What you need
Towels or kitchen cloth ( a lot of it)
Baking Soda
Vacuum Cleaner
Biocide cleaner deodoriser
Spray bottle
Carpet or upholstery brush
1) Remove as much fishy juice as possible
The time this will take varies depending on what you have at hand. For the sake of this section I’m going to assume you don’t have a wet and dry vacuum or carpet cleaner (see below if you do).
Grab a towel or kitchen cloth and gently dab the fishy stain, this will soak up a large proportion of the juices left on the carpet. Do this 2-3 times or until the floor is only slightly damp.
Put the towel straight in the wash or a bag ready to dispose of as you don’t want the juices to spread anywhere else in the home.
Then you want to add some baking soda to the stain. This isn’t really to remove any odours (although it does help) but to soak up the rest of the moisture, making it ready to be vacuumed. Make sure that you put a bag in your vacuum cleaner before removing the baking soda from the stained area.
2) Enzyme cleaner
Now that the juices have been mostly removed you can use your enzyme cleaner on the remaining stain. To use it, you will need to mix it with warm water. This activates the chemicals inside to work at killing bacteria.
Mix the product with warm water in a spray bottle, then use a generous amount onto the stain. Use your carpet brush to agitate the cleaner into the fibres.
Let it sit like this fir at least 15 minutes before moving onto the next step.
3) Dry the area
There is no rush on this part with the biocide cleaner as the longer you leave it on the better it is for that smell.
It won’t damage the carpet, nor does the product smell found so put your feet up and wait for it to dry if you like. Alternatively get a towel and sit it on top of the area or use a wet and dry vacuum to speed the process up.
4) Repeat step 2 if odour persists
If there is still a bad smell you probably either missed an area of the carpet without spraying the cleaner onto it, or you didn’t let it sit for long enough.
Either way, get your biocide cleaner and soak the affected areas. Use your carpet brush vigorously to make sure you penetrate all of the fibres.
This is a sure-fire way to remove that bad smell and there’s no way it could persist if you do the steps correctly.
If you have any of these, your job got much easier
Steam cleaner – if you have access to a steam cleaner then this is an excellent deodoriser on its own. You will probably still need some of the biocide cleaner but will be using much less of it.
Even with your steamer, it is still required to dry the area for completion of the job to ensure any bad odours don’t come back.
Carpet cleaner – with a carpet cleaner you can do pretty much all steps in one. There are biocide cleaners you can add to it, you can suck the fishy smell up and dry the area all at the same time.
The only extra thing you will need to do with your carpet cleaner is agitate the area with a carpet brush once spraying biocide cleaner down. This will activate the fibers allowing it to be sucked up easily.
Use warm water with your cleaner just like in the spray bottle, this is what makes the biocide cleaner work.
Wet and dry vacuum – with a wet and dry vacuum, removing the excess fishy fluid is a breeze. You can use this for the first and final step and it’s going to be way more effective than a towel.
You will of course need to use your biocide cleaner in between and let it sit for about 10 minutes to eat away at that smelly bacteria.
