Your little one is really cute but a gum on the carpet is not a cute sight at all!

There’s nothing worse than stepping in gum – unless the gum happens to be stuck in your carpet. Before you lose your cool, try these tips for removing gum from carpet:

• Ice: Freezing gum makes it solid and brittle. Put a small bag of ice over the gum and leave it for 15 to 20 minutes. Once the gum is hardened, use a butter knife to carefully scrape the gum free from your carpet fibers. This method works well for getting the bulk of the gum out of the carpet, but may leave some residual stickiness.
• Heat: Use a hair dryer to soften the gum. This will loosen the stickiness and allow you to pull most of the gum off of the carpet. Depending on the type of carpet you have, heat may damage the fibers of your carpet. Test this method in a hidden area of your carpet. Man-made fibers are most susceptible to heat damage.

Once you’ve removed most of the gum from your carpet, you’ll need to deal with the residual stickiness and leftover strands of gum. Here’s how to remove gum from carpet:

• Oil: Rub a small amount of peanut butter or vegetable oil into the gum. Use your fingers to loosen the remaining gum from the fibers. This method may stain your carpet so test it in an inconspicuous spot first.
• Vinegar: Pour a little white vinegar onto the gum and let it soak for 15 minutes. Scrape off the remaining gum with a butter knife. Vinegar can make the dye in your carpet bleed, so test this method before using it in a noticeable area of your carpet.

Finally, after the gum is completely removed, use a mild dish soap and warm water to clean the oil or vinegar out of the carpet. If these home remedies don’t work – or you’d rather just play it safe – call a reliable carpet cleaning service. They will have the most effective and proven tools to remove gum from carpet, and will leave your whole carpet looking like new.

About Vince Sandri

Vince Sandri is a content writer and blogger with more than 12 years of experience. His expertise is in creating content related to disaster restoration, including information about preventing and reacting to natural disasters like flooding, water damage, fire and smoke damage, mold growth, storm damage and more.
Vince has been the main contributor to RestorationMasterFinder.com since 2014. Over that time, he has written numerous service pages and blogs for disaster restoration providers featured on RestorationMasterFinder.com. Vince has done extensive research and covered a wide range of topics relating to disaster restoration to help homeowners, business owners, and property managers better protect their property. He understands the problems that disasters like flooding, fire, smoke, and mold can cause as well as the best ways to respond to these issues to limit the damage.
Vince completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at Aurora University and his master’s degree at DePaul University. He has been writing SEO website pages, blogs, and press releases since 2012. Vince is also a musician and can be seen playing in the Chicago, IL area.