[wayne zabel]

If you were to cut an orange in half and put it fruit side down on a  wool carpet would you expect it to leave a dark brown stain if left long enough.

[Mike Gwilliam]

Yes I've seen the same thing happen in a boys bedroom where he left the orange on the carpet and the stain was permanent. The half eaten orange fell out of his school bag and left a dark brown stain.

So not such a daft question after all....

[wayne zabel]

Right thanks for that.

I did a job today that I viewed last week in the evening,so no natural light and spotlights on.

The customer showed me a selection of black marks/stains that he was adamant was "just mud" I personally thought it was more sinister.

Went to do the job today and he was still saying they were just mud.He also pointed out the dark brown mark about 3 inches in diameter that was in the carpet that he hadn't known about until he started to move stuff in readiness for my visit.He said he vaguely remembered an orange being dropped and left.

Anyway what he thought was mud wouldn't budge after treating with a MS and extracting.

I treated with POG and it came out ,so he was obviously wrong about the mud.It was an oil stain of some sort.

This got me thinking about his orange theory being wrong as I thought it was a dye stain.

Anyway it would not budge one bit after trying many products.

I thought I would run it by this forum to see if anyone else had an idea.

It would appear he was right then

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

Is the wool carpet hessian backed?

[wayne zabel]

 Thinking about it I only remember doing a burn test for the wool last week.It looked synthetic on first viewing.I cant remember to be honest.

Will hessian have caused the stain.

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

I'm not sure if there is enough liquid in half an orange to cause hessian bleed unless it was squashed down but it could be a factor. Any liquid can cause hessian bleed so something else could have been spilt in the past. Also I always ask if the carpet has been cleaned before if it's wool and has issues. The reason being is it's amazing how many times I come across wool carpets that another carpet cleaner has cleaned in the past and has not bothered to protect under the wood furniture ect leaving brownish stains!

[Kev Martin]

As you all know I don't know  SFA about carpets  but juice from fresh oranges is around 3.5 on the pH Scale making a fairly strong Citric Acid.  Not as strong as lemon juice I know but could the citric acid have done the damage to the carpet???

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

Could be wrong but the acid is unlikely to be an issue. I would have thought acid would make a lighter patch if anything. We use acid rinses to rectify or prevent wool discoloration and hessian bleed so that's another reason for maybe discounting the acid.

The thing no one has mentioned is that an orange contains natural sugar's.

Sugar fermenting could be the problem if the orange was down long enough. Have you ever seen fruit go off and ferment!
It smells like ale and goes brown!

There I've solved your problem ..... Just call me Inspector poirot!