Mr Medway or anyone else, do you have any advice on removing blood marks from off-white wool-blend carpet?
Although quite some attempt was made to clean them up at the time, various circumstances have resulted in them still being visible some 3/4 weeks later.
(No criminal aspect to this! Illness, unfortunately.)
Unfortunately, the longer left, the harder to remove. If it's still red, I would try dampening with plain soap (not coloured) and water, leave for a while (but keep damp), and then try blotting off. If it's brown, then the iron in the blood is now rust, and that's harder to remove. Things like phosphoric acid will react with it, but the resulting products may be no easier to remove from a white carpet. Clear vinegar (acetic acid) may dissolve it, although you might get a resulting green iron compound which may or may not easily blot up.
Whatever you try, testing it on a hidden area is probably a good thing, in case it reacts with anything else in the carpet.
Hydrogen peroxide (probably still available from your local chemist's). As with any cleaning tactic, it's worth testing a little of it on a hidden area first in case your carpet disagrees with it.
I have a feeling that blood will destroy peroxide faster that you can apply it and if it doesn't the oxidation reaction will turn the iron into insoluble ferric form fixing the stain as rust.
Best best is a proprietory blood/protein stain remover which tend to be enzyme based with a reducing agent in. Proefssional cleaners might be able to do better with more aggressive reagents.
Just don't google on the diseases you can catch from someone elses blood. Wear gloves.
Lets just say SWMBO'd would literally have to be at deaths door for lack of blood before she accepted *any* blood product. Lack of volume pump in more saline, lack of red cells, she'll put up with being anaemic for a few weeks and adjust her diet to include more iron and things to help iron absorption. Low white cells, just hope she doesn't catch anything serious. She used to run the heamatology lab at Barts...
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