Friday I cleaned a off white berber, tack & strip installed with pad over a concrete subfloor in a home owned by a "snowbird" or winter resident, who is returning from up north this week. No one has lived there since the spring. By the way I am in SW Fl.

In their office and master bedroom they have desks with acrylic carpet protectors under the swivel chairs. When we removed the protectors to clean the carpets, both areas contained stained wet spots abour 1 foot in diameter in the center of where each protector laid. The one in the office was obvious browning and responded well to being treated with Fab Set. The one in the bedroom was a deep reddish orange & turned pink from the same treatment. I decided to let the carpet dry completely before doing anything else. I cleaned using Cimex & Releasit.

I'm thinking that there must be some seepage through the subfloor, what I don't quite get is why the stains are so different? Any thoughts on this?

I would think it's one of two possibilities... Moisture is either coming up from under the floor (keep in mind that moisture passes through EVERYTHING on the planet), or the mats were put back down on top of wet carpet the last time the carpet was cleaned. That would be my guess. You might try using peroxide to attempt removing/lessening the discoloration.








Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

Thanks Rick. The carpet was last cleaned a year ago, so it must be the latter. I'll try the peroxide.

In an office building we attempted to clean years ago the carpet was wet under every chair mat. It was carpet tile and there was so much water under the tile that when we got in the first cubicle with the wand, brown nasty water spurted out through the joints and splashed up onto the partitions. Apparently that building did not have a proper vapor barrier under the concrete. We never did clean it and I don't know what they ever did about it.