Black carpets around baseboards?

terpchristy · August 2010

In our master bedroom we have horrible black stains around the baseboards. The rest of the bedrooms are fine, no problems at all. We just used a friend's carpet cleaner to try to get the stains out, but no luck. DH and I are planning on having a carpet cleaning company come out and and I hope they can tell us what is going on. Does anyone else have this problem? Any ideas as to what I could be?

JUSTBEYOURSELF · August 2010

do you have alot of moisture in that part of your home? all I can think of is mold and that it might be more than just trying to clean it. maybe removing the carpet and looking below on the carpet pad to see if that is effected as well. this is just a guess... good luck...

I have all wood/tile floors thru out our home so I am not a big help... sorry...

MrsBPO · August 2010

http://www.naturalhandyman.com/qa/qacarpetstain.html

Is it at all four walls or the outside walls only? Worse along the outside walls?

My guess is that it's moisture- or barrier-seal related. You have a leak somewhere (not like a plumbing leak, but an air-leak or if your master is on the first floor somewhere between the concrete slab and the wood joists isn't fully sealed, seepage from the ground through the concrete slab or something similar) or a blockage where there should be circulation (that's actually the problem with my "leaking" shower.) I've read primarily that it could be dirt that's gotten wet from the perimeter moisture seepage rather than a mold problem.

The carpet cleaners can get it out but it'll come back if the problem isn't addressed that is causing the stains. You should have an installer or contractor come out to take a look as well as the carpet cleaners. And give the cleaners a heads-up that the problems is the black around the edges so they can have proper equipment and a proper estimate.

Nicole and Chris · August 2010

Do you smoke or use candles? My aunt is a huge smoker and the carpet closest to the baseboards was always more dirty than what the other parts were. My parents also had this same problem with lighter carpet but they were burning candles a lot. The dark soot was collecting around the baseboards on their carpeting. I'm sure that the carpet cleaning guys can take out what is there but hopfeully, like another poster said, it isn't mold.

lmdbww · August 2010

Our upstairs bedrooms are like this (although it is more grey than full on black...)

I actually asked this years ago on the D&R board and someone suggested that it might either be from spraying bug spray and dust collecting on the wet areas as it dried, or just the fact that the area isn't really cleaned will with conventional vacuums/steam cleaners because the brushes cannot really scrub there (being so close to the baseboards).

I've tried everything to clean ours and it's lightened a little bit but has never been fully removed, no matter what machine or cleaner I use on it. When we put hardwood in our downstairs, the carpets were like that there as well and there was no visible evidence underneath of water damage or mold. I just chalked it up to the fact that all of the carpets are original to the house and the previous owners were filthy (which they definitely were).