haunted carpet

[WTY]

Hi everyone!

I seem to have a haunted carpet! There are a few dark stains that I can't get rid of. They are fairly large, and look like a liquid stain in pattern. We have cleaned it multiple times and they reappear-like magic!

When you go over the stains, it appears clean, but as it dries, they come back. I am assuming it's something that's being wicked up by the carpet as it dries; however CONSTANT repetitive cleaning doesn't seem to diminish the effect. My girlfriend thinks it may be the adhesive from the carpet backing that is used to adhere the fibers to the base, but I can't imagine that it would cause staining of this color (like coffee or oil). I have even tried soaking a small section with hot water and extracting to see if there's any difference, but no.

Has anyone ever experienced this?

[Phisherman]

There is probably carpet padding stain that is drawing up into the carpeting by capillary action. In that case, replacing the carpet padding or the portion where you see staining should prevent restaining. Another option is to put a vapor barrier such as a sheet of plastic between the padding and the carpeting.