Yep, and it was intentional.

One of the things that sold me on our carpet (besides the forgiving color and texture) was that it had a lifetime stain guarantee.  The guy who sold it to me said I could spill bleach on it and the carpet would not discolor.  I hoped that would never happen.

We’ve had this carpet in our home for three years now, and I’ve had the main area outside our kitchen professionally cleaned once, and I’ve rented a shampooer twice, I think.  It’s the highest traffic area in our house.  I think it’s noticeably a little darker, a little dingy.  (That’s Dinge-y not Ding-y)  I’ve tried spot cleaning it with a variety of sprays, and paying extra attention when I have the shampooer, but it still always looks dingy.

Then I had a brilliant idea.  If bleach doesn’t discolor my carpet, but bleach ‘brightens’ and bleaches out dirt and grime and stains, I wonder if I could bleach that area clean?  So I opened our soon-to-be-eliminated linen closet (which is totally empty) and sprayed a 50-50 bleach/water solution on the back corner of the floor, figuring if that little piece of carpet gets wrecked it won’t matter.

An hour later- no change.  No discoloring.  No white spot.  Yippee!

So I started spraying away on the patch outside the kitchen door…spritzing and brushing the carpet with my FlyLady Rubba Scrubba to ensure the bleach really got into the fibers all the way down.  I could see it brightening the area almost instantly!  I waited an hour and then bleached it again, just to make double sure it was clean.

Know what?  No more dingy spot!  It’s bright and clean and looks like the surrounding carpet again.  Now I can’t wait to go around and find other ‘spots’ and bleach them.  Too bad I can’t do this same thing in the kids’ bedrooms.  If I took a bleach spray to their carpet we’d have big cream colored spots!

I will never buy un-bleachable carpet again.

Unfortunately the store we bought it from last time went out of business (Trinity Carpet) and we need to replace the carpet in our hallway when the new addition is done.  When I bought the carpet in 2007, Home Depot (or maybe it was Lowe’s) sold the exact same stuff but it went by a different name.  I’ll look there first, specs in hand to make sure it’s the right match.

Here are the specs, in case you are interested.  And once I find a current match I’ll post that information:

Brand: Horizon by Mohawk
Style: South Padre Island
Color: Anise Seed #535
Face Weight: 51oz
Gauge: 3/16
100% Smartstrand Triexta BCF
10 Year Texture Retention
Lifetime Stain Resistance
15 Year Abrasive Wear