Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cleaning and stains

Out, damned spot!

fantine — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:55:12 -0800

How can I clean my besmirched kindle? Stain on white Kindle case. Do not want!

Ok, I just got a kindle and it's awesome. However, i've gotten it a little dirty and I prefer it clean.

I was trying to clear up a little mark with the spit-and-fabric technique when unfortunately, some reddish/pink dye from my skirt (cheaply made, alas) got onto the white border. I tried scrubbing with windex, a damp paper towel, and a washcloth with soap Toni avail. There remains a faint (but real) light pink stain on the upper left corner.

How can I clean this properly? I'm guessing a thin coat of white out maybe be folly, but would that work? Any and all guidance apppreciated.

How do I get dirt stains out?

otherwordlyglow — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:22:55 -0800

How do I remove dirt stains on pants? My daughter came home from daycare with the knees of her pants totally saturated with a mixture of sand and dirt. She's a crawler and I expect this to happen a lot but have no experience with dirt stains. (I don't do a lot of stuff that leads to dirt stains on me). For the most part it doesn't matter too much: the pants were cheap and I'm sure she'll grow out of them in another month but what's the best way to treat these kinds of stains? I'm sure there will be plenty more.

The complicating factor is that they've already been washed and dried and still have stains on the knees. Is there any hope of getting them totally clean? Generally, I know to pre-treat stains but I neglected to do that this time. So the question really is two-fold: What are best practices for dirt stains and then what do I do in this case where it's already been laundered but the stain remains? I'm in the U.S., so product recommendations will be most helpful if they're available here.

Bonus side question: Does anyone remember a solvent/stain removal product that used to be available maybe up to the 70s and 80s? It was alcohol based and came in a narrow, tall-ish glass jar with a felt tip that you dabbed on to stains? I can't find it anymore which leads me to believe it was toxic and so they've taken it off the market but it worked like a charm on a lot of things.

How to remove dye stains from hardwood?

Felicity Rilke — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:38:45 -0800

Ho do I remove confetti and streamer stains from hardwood floors? We held an election party last night complete with streamers and that metallic confetti which shoots out of poppers. Some of the streamers and confetti sat in pools of alcohol all night and today I am faced with candy-coloured marks all over my light-coloured hardwood. What's the best way to get rid of them (or, at the very least, fade them so they're less noticeable). I don't want to ruin the floors with my experimentation.

The Idiot Dog ate what?

onhazier — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:50:38 -0800

Dog + Pig Roast Charcoal Ashes = Dear God, how do I get this out? We had a great pig roast on Sunday. Yay! Monday evening, DH and I cleaned the grill, putting all the ashes and charcoal remains in a bucket. We moved one item from the backyard and returned to find the idiot dog with his face in the bucket. We got him away from it and removed it from his accessible area. No ashes were on his muzzle and he wasn't swallowing when we caught him so we thought we were lucky.

When we returned home from work yesterday, the idiot dog (his new official name, btw) had redecorated the carpet of one room. The mess came from the back end. This morning revealed a puke pile deposited overnight. How he didn't throw up the ashes earlier, I have no idea.

The idiot dog seems perfectly fine after his ash purgative. However, we have beige carpet with a hideous dark gray stain now. How do I get this out?

How to get ballpoint pen mark off leather jacket?

zembla3 — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 12:39:13 -0800

What is the best way to get a light ballpoint ink mark out of a leather jacket without discoloring or otherwise damaging the leather? It's a black pen mark on a brown jacket.

Does Urine-Gone (or similar products) work? If not, what does?

Shoeburyness — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 13:37:45 -0800

AsSeenOnTVFilter: I have a lot of pee stains/smells that I need to remove from carpet and mattresses. I've looked up other threads, but what I specifically want to know is: Is Urine-Gone (or it's apparent twin, Urine-Off) worth buying? (Not from me personally, but from kid's accidents, dog's accidents, and men's/teenage boy's inabilty to frickin' AIM in our carpeted bathrooms. Who the hell thought carpeting bathrooms was a good idea?) I've used something called "Out!" in the past for pet urine on carpet, but it smelled awful (as in heavy perfume awful) until it dried. I don't really want to wait for something to be delivered, I'd like something I can go out and buy. (I've seen the Urine-Gone at the local Bedsheets & Kitchen Stuff type stores.) If it's not worth buying, what is?

Also, how do I get blood stains out of a feather bed? I tried Oxi-Clean and it just took things from bad (large dark stain identifiable as blood) to worse (larger, somewhat lighter stain that is not identifiable as blood, but now looks like something really, really gross.) Of course, I'm not in the habit of showing my uncovered feather bed to all and sundry, and *I* know what the stain is, but it would be nice to get it out if I could.

Getting stains out of a white formica kitchen counter

CunningLinguist — Thu, 12 May 2005 05:30:51 -0800

Have I hopelessly stained my white formica kitchen counter? After some recent debauchery, there were some stains on my counter the morning after. Not sure what: could be red wine, could be coffee, could be raspberry juice. I wasn't worried in the least because a little Soft Scrub with bleach always took care of such problems instantly in the past. But not this time. When it didn't, I thought, "hmm, well, maybe more bleach" so I poured a flood of straight bleach on the stains, covered them with a damp paper towel and went away. When I got back, to my horror, the stains have now become much more prominent and have turned a hideous, bright Halloween-y orange. No amount of scrubbing even begins to minimize them. What the hell did I do? And is there any way to fix this?

Stain Removal

tomharpel — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:09:55 -0800

In the small kitchen, the gas range is butted up against the refrigerator. After a few years of cooking, a brown stain mars the otherwise-white vinyl side of the refrigerator. How do I remove the brown stain?