removal of acrylic paint from carpet

[christineharvell]

What a nightmare, when our 2 year old son tossed a can of paint down our basement stairs which opened and splattered half a can on the 100% olifin (plastic content) berber carpet...I don't know if this will work for people with pile carpet, but if you have berber, give this a whirl, because it worked for us!!!! A happy ending to a horrible event! First, suck up as much as you can with a wet vac. Don\\\'t do anything until you do that. Then, fill a bucket with warm water and laundry detergent (I used ALL brand, but any should do it!) Take a firm scrub brush and scrub through the stain. I used a drink pitcher full of warm water with some laundry detergent in it to pour some water onto the area, and then quickly wet vac\\\'d the area. This process of scrubbing and pouring detergent solution and sucking it up with the wet vac took about an hour and a half, but it was well worth not having to replace the entire carpet. We also had 3 people doing it, which I think is necessary to have at least 2 people, because one couldn\\\'t possibly handle the stress and work intensiveness of it all alone. We noticed that as we used the vac, the color of the paint was coming back up to the surface and as we scrubbed with the solution or poured the solution on, the paint color disappeared. We were tempted to just stop wet vac\\\'ing, but really, over time, or if the carpet became wet again for any reason, it would probably automatically come back up through the surface, which would be terrible. So we kept at it, until the paint color didn\\\'t bleed back to the surface after vacuuming it. After this success, should anyone out there read this and it be useful to them, we would love to have you email us to tell us so at christine@harvell.com GOOD LUCK ALL!!!!!