How to Get Slime Out of Carpet (Wet and Dried)

To get slime out of carpet, scrape off what you can, loosen the rest with diluted white vinegar, then blot and rinse. Lift the bulk with a blunt knife or spoon, working from the outside edge in. Dab on a half-and-half mix of white vinegar and cool water, wait a few minutes, then blot and scrape the loosened slime away. Finish with a plain water rinse.

If the slime has dried hard, freeze it first. Hold ice in a sealed bag on it until it goes brittle, break it off, then treat what is left the same way.

The one thing not to do is pull at it. Slime stretches, wraps itself further around the fibres and spreads. This guide explains why, then walks through wet slime, dried slime, the colour stain it can leave, and when to call a professional.

Most slime, homemade or from the shop, is glue mixed with an activator such as borax or contact lens solution. The activator links the long glue molecules together. Carnegie Mellon University explains that these links are weak bonds, which is why slime flows, stretches and pulls apart so easily.

That same stretchiness is the problem in carpet. When slime is trodden in, it flows around individual fibres and grips them. Pull it and it stretches deeper rather than coming away cleanly.

The good news is that those weak links can be undone. A paper in the Journal of Chemical Education describes how acid disables the links that hold slime together. At home, the mild acid you already have is white vinegar. It turns firm slime back into loose, runny glue that can be blotted out. You are not really scrubbing slime out of carpet. You are undoing it.

Wool carpet or a wool rug? Go gently. Godfrey Hirst's wool guide uses a much milder mix: one teaspoon of wool-approved detergent and one teaspoon of white vinegar in a litre of warm (not hot) water. Use that instead of the half-and-half vinegar, test it first, and be patient. If the slime is not lifting, stop and call a professional rather than scrubbing wool.

Dried slime looks worse than it is. It has lost its moisture, so it is less sticky and can often be broken off.

1. Freeze it. Put ice cubes in a sealed plastic bag and hold it on the slime until it goes stiff and brittle. The University of Georgia Extension's textile guide uses the same approach for chewing gum in carpet, and suggests laying a piece of cardboard with a hole cut out over the spot to protect the surrounding pile.
2. Break it off. Tap and lift the hardened slime with a blunt knife or spoon. Take it slowly so you do not pull out fibres.
3. Vacuum the pieces. Then look at what is left. There is usually a thin, shiny film on the tips of the fibres.
4. Treat the film. Follow steps 2 to 6 above. Old dried slime often needs two or three rounds, with the carpet drying between each one.

Do not cut the slime out with scissors unless it is on a small shag rug and nothing else has worked. Cutting leaves a permanent low patch in the pile.

Clear and white slime usually comes out without a trace. Coloured slime is different, because food colouring and glitter slime dyes can transfer to carpet fibres, especially if the slime has sat for a while.

Once all the slime is out, treat any colour left behind with a weak detergent solution: a quarter of a teaspoon of plain dishwashing liquid in a cup of lukewarm water. This is the spot-cleaning mix recommended by the Carpet and Rug Institute. Do not use laundry detergent, because the Institute warns that many contain optical brighteners that can dye carpet fibres. Blot the solution on with a white cloth, rinse with plain water, and repeat while colour keeps coming off onto the cloth.

Stains can also come back as the carpet dries. Godfrey Hirst calls this wicking, where colour hidden deep in the pile rises to the surface. If that happens, let the carpet dry fully and treat it again. It may take a few days.

For glitter slime, get the slime out first, let the carpet dry, then vacuum slowly in a few directions to pick up the glitter.

Heat is worth a special mention. Godfrey Hirst advises cold water for most stains on synthetic carpet and warm, not hot, water on wool. Hot water can set the dye from coloured slime and makes the job harder, not easier.

Most slime accidents are a DIY job. Call a professional carpet cleaner when:

• a coloured stain is still there after a few rounds of treatment
• the slime is on wool carpet or a valuable rug
• it has been trodden across a large area or down a hallway
• the carpet feels stiff, sticky or looks darker where you cleaned, which usually means residue is still in the pile
• you are moving out of a rental and the carpet needs to be professionally cleaned for your final inspection (see our end of lease cleaning)

We treat spots and stains as part of a carpet steam clean. Stain treatment usually adds $30 to $60, and you can see the full rates on our carpet cleaning prices page. We check every mark before we start and tell you honestly if a dye stain is unlikely to come out. We clean carpet across Canberra and Queanbeyan; see our Canberra carpet cleaning page for what is included.

If the slime has ended up on the couch instead, our upholstery cleaning service can help. For other household spills, our complete guide to removing carpet stains covers the most common ones.