What’s wrong with this picture? You can see the beautiful new wood floor that we put in just two weeks ago, but not the jute/wool rug that I’ve been sorta in love with since we put it down. It was a good deal, soft to the touch, and just the look I wanted.
The perfect rug for us.
So when we returned home last Sunday after leaving our dog, Samson, for a few hours in the laundry room and found multiple spots where he had left diarrhea, we were horrified (a well as realizing that he can get out of the laundry room when he wants to).
Two things about this are interesting:
- There was approximately 2,100 square feet of floor where Samson could’ve deposited his “gifts” and I wouldn’t have cared one bit. Wood floors. Paper bag floors coated with polyurethane. Old rugs. And only one place I cared about…bingo. Plus, he’s NEVER been in the living room before. Go figure.
- I’m sorry to admit that I cried when I saw it. Between the smell and the thought of it permeating all the fibers of the jute and wool, I just lost it. So much for “putting people above things.” I mean, a dog is a living thing…surely more important than a replaceable rug, right?
Well, I couldn’t see it in the moment. And I couldn’t look at the rug or the dog. Thank goodness, Brian took things under control and went to work on the rug.
After removing what he could, we rolled it up (covering the spots with old rags so they wouldn’t contaminate a clean spot as we rolled) and took it outside.
Where he spent the next 20 minutes alternating between flushing the bad areas with water and Green Works cleaner. We really needed to disinfect the areas, but couldn’t use bleach, so the Green Works we already had came in handy.
After scrubbing the areas gently with the cleaner, Brian gave the rug a final blast with the water and we took it in the garage for the night, laying it on a clean painter’s cloth we had.
Why the garage? Well, it was going to rain…are you surprised? July in Oregon.
The next day we moved it to the trampoline to have some time to dry underneath- the trampoline allows air to flow on the bottom- before more rain was expected. It didn’t dry in that time, so it went back into the garage.
We finally were able to leave it out in the sun all day on Wednesday which dried it completely so it could be put back in the living room. There are slight shadows you-know-where (if you look hard and you know where to look), but there is no smell- whew!
So on the back end of this incident, I can see that I overreacted in those first moments. Yes, it cost $200 and I love it, but it is just a rug and it may yet see a nice red-wine stain that is not going to be more important than the poor person who’ll feel awful about causing it.
And I can shout from the rooftops- “I love wood floors and area rugs!”
Imagine if we had just spent $800 to $1000 on wall-to-wall carpeting (going rate to buy and have 300 square feet installed…).
Oh, yes, I’m thankful for that and for my awesome husband who never balked at cleaning it up.
–Jami
Jeni- Yes, we had a pad under it, thank goodness. Nothing went through to the wood floor. 😉
Just wondering…do you have some sort of pad underneath your jute rug? I was just searching for jute rugs & saw a photo that had damaged the hardwood floor because it didn’t have one. I had no idea. Just thougt I’d pass the little I learned on to you. Our little pets…got’ta love ’em! 🙂
ugh! we have that rug 🙂
What a shame. I’m glad your tale has a happy ending.
Using the trampoline to help dry the rug was inspired. I hope you have a great day. Blessings…Mary
We have tile throughout our entire house, but for some reason our cats always seem to throw up on the few area rugs we have – why is that? Glad you were able to get it all cleaned up. Not sure if you can use it on your particular rug, but Nature’s Miracle from the pet store removes odor and stains if it ends up coming back.