But first I had to wait for fresh powdery snow. Mother nature obliged and on Saturday morning I hauled the rug shown above outside to clean. The boy and two of our three cats crowded into the kitchen window to watch the show, and what a show it was. I beat the stinkin' rug until my arms hurt (which took about 180 seconds) and then kept beating it. I flipped it over, dismayed not to see oodles of dirt in the snow, and flipped it again. Then I ground some snow in to the front for good measure to try and get more stains and dirt out. Didn't work.
Eventually I gave up and hauled the rug back up to the deck, hung it over the railing and beat it some more to try and get the excess snow off. My still-stained rug was now wet to boot, so with the boy's help I dragged it inside, into the basement and we hung it on the basement clothesline and I proceeded to consider the entire ordeal a giant bust.
The boyfriend jumped on his white stud of a computer (okay it's really black, but that didn't fit the analogy, now did it?) and called the rug cleaners and found a place where we could drop off the rug that day for cleaning for only $17. And that's where we stand until Monday, when I see if anything can save that darn rug.
To be fair, I did screw up on a few accounts:
- It wasn't cold enough. The directions state to clean the rug on a day where it's well below freezing, which is wasn't, but patience has never been one of my virtues.
- Grinding snow into the rug didn't help get out any stains and only contributed to the wetness issue.