How to Get Gum Out of Carpet (3 Most Effective Ways)

What’s the only thing worse than stepping in gum on a sidewalk; stepping in gum on your carpet? This mess has happened to most of us, especially if you have kids in the house. Gum has a funny habit of finding its way out of your mouth and onto the floor regardless of where you are.

Gum is useful for a lot of things. Some people chew it to ease stress; others chew it to take their mind off of something like smoking. Removing gum from carpeting can be a sticky situation if you don’t know how to handle it. Gum doesn’t have to damage your carpeting or require an expensive professional cleaning permanently.

Here is how you get gum out of carpet:

Strategy 1: Freeze it Off

The first method requires you to freeze the gum off and scrape it up once it’s hardened quite a bit. This strategy works great if the gum has not been sitting on the carpet for a long time.

Here’s what you need to do to remove gum from your carpeting successfully:

• Place an ice pack or a few bagged ice cubes on top of the gum.
• Leave the ice on the gum until it is entirely frozen and very hard to the touch.
• Use a dull knife or putty knife to scrape the gum from the carpeting.
• When you’re doing this, the gum should be frozen enough to crack and chip away as you scrape at it.
• Continue scraping until there is no more visible gum on the carpet.
• Using a gentle dish soap or white vinegar, clean the spot with a towel and vacuum it up until its completely dry.

Strategy 2: Get Oily

Utterly different from freezing the gum off is using different oils to soften the gum and make it, so it doesn’t stick anymore. Make sure you test any of these oils on an unnoticeable part of your carpet before using it on a larger area. Some oils may stain or spread.

Here are a few examples of oils to try on gum in your carpet:

• Eucalyptus Oil
• Olive Oil
• Peanut Butter

Here are the steps you need to follow to remove gum using oils:

• Pour some of your chosen oil on a clean towel and soak the gum in it. Make sure to spread the oil over the gum and coat it thoroughly. The goal is for the oil to soak into the gum and begin separating the sticky components. When this happens, it should scrape right off.
• Use a dull knife or putty knife to scrape at the gum. Get underneath it and scrape it until it starts rolling over.
• Eventually, the gum will become utterly loose from the carpet and come right off.
• For clean up, mix gentle dish soap with water and scrub the oily area of the carpet.

Strategy 3: WD40

If neither of the previous two strategies worked for you, give this method a try. Using WD40 breaks down the polymers in the gum making it lift up out of the carpet.

Here are the steps you need to take to get gum out of your carpet:

• Get some WD40 and spray a liberal amount on to the gum. Let this sit for a few minutes so it can soak in and start to break down the gum.
• Get a small brush like a toothbrush and start scrubbing the gum stain thoroughly. Continue washing on and off for at least five minutes.
• Once a significant portion of the gum has lifted from the carpet; wipe the area clean and reapply more WD40. Follow the process repeatedly.
• Keep doing this until the gum has broken down completely.

If this leaves you with discoloration in the carpet, there is a solution for that.

Using a degreaser-based dish soap coat the entire area and apply a warm sponge to the stained portion of the carpet. Continue this process until the carpet is like new again.

Sticky gum can be a real nuisance to a nice plush carpet, but if you use these methods to remove gum from carpet correctly – it’s easy to make sure you don’t ruin your carpet or break the bank on a professional cleaner.

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