Mystery brown spots on wool carpet in fancy house

[Tcoulter]

I've got a customer that has a $30M home and he always has me take care of his carpets. About half the carpet in house is wall to wall wool/ wool rugs. He has 5 other homes exactly like this one around the world, and he doesn't have this problem at any of the others. Basically, there are these brown spots that have appeared all over the place. He said nothing was spilled, and nothing dripped. What could it be? About 95% of it cleaned out with water, but I could not get every bit of it out. I really am just stumped, and curious, and so is he. Any ideas?

Also, he has little spots of dog pee all throughout house on his wool...and I can never ever get them out, at ALL. What should I try on them next time? I think I actually damaged some spots more after trying so many different products on them last year. This time I just misted some stain zone diluted with 1 part water (Scott Warrington recommended in another thread for wool), and told him I hope it works better this time.

Here's the pics of an area behind the stairs and also on a rug.

 

[sbsscn]

Is he blaming you?
Have you done a burn/id test on the fiber to be sure its wool?
How is this carpet? is there a jute backing? almost looks like cellulose browning and urine stains.
Use the UV light to confirm. It also looks like someone spilled dye.

 

[Tcoulter]

Is he blaming you?
Have you done a burn/id test on the fiber to be sure its wool?
How is this carpet? is there a jute backing? almost looks like cellulose browning and urine stains.
Use the UV light to confirm. It also looks like someone spilled dye.

No he is totally cool, really likes my work. I had never cleaned these areas, so he is not blaming me. And no one else has cleaned them either. He and his property manager and I are honestly just stumped as to what it could be? My only theory was that some sort of moisture from the concrete was wicking up to create these stains. But then that was pretty nullified when I saw these spots on the stairs. This is oceanfront in a high humidity area. You can see in the first picture a curved line of brown in the bottom right corner. This was at the edge of where a heavy table was sitting. Also I am 100% sure it is wool, it is easily identifiable without even getting close in person.

 

[ccclean]

Is he blaming you?
Have you done a burn/id test on the fiber to be sure its wool?
How is this carpet? is there a jute backing? almost looks like cellulose browning and urine stains.
Use the UV light to confirm. It also looks like someone spilled dye.

No he is totally cool, really likes my work. I had never cleaned these areas, so he is not blaming me. And no one else has cleaned them either. He and his property manager and I are honestly just stumped as to what it could be? My only theory was that some sort of moisture from the concrete was wicking up to create these stains. But then that was pretty nullified when I saw these spots on the stairs. This is oceanfront in a high humidity area. You can see in the first picture a curved line of brown in the bottom right corner. This was at the edge of where a heavy table was sitting. Also I am 100% sure it is wool, it is easily identifiable without even getting close in person.

The nose on the stair is a very common place to leave very wet when cleaned.
You seem to know your customer but I wonder if someone else cleaned them and left them
Wet.
Either way in my experience stains always have a reason to be there and it’s usually obvious in retrospect.

 

[Tcoulter]

The nose on the stair is a very common place to leave very wet when cleaned.
You seem to know your customer but I wonder if someone else cleaned them and left them
Wet.
Either way in my experience stains always have a reason to be there and it’s usually obvious in retrospect.

Maybe like a housekeeper type person did some sort of cleaning? That's the only thing I can think of. I know that no other professional carpet cleaners have been to this house.

 

[sbsscn]

No he is totally cool, really likes my work. I had never cleaned these areas, so he is not blaming me. And no one else has cleaned them either. He and his property manager and I are honestly just stumped as to what it could be? My only theory was that some sort of moisture from the concrete was wicking up to create these stains. But then that was pretty nullified when I saw these spots on the stairs. This is oceanfront in a high humidity area. You can see in the first picture a curved line of brown in the bottom right corner. This was at the edge of where a heavy table was sitting. Also I am 100% sure it is wool, it is easily identifiable without even getting close in person.

How does it smell after the cleaning? If this is a new home built it might not be be wool or it might be. Acrylic can imitate wool well but should not be doing this. Or it could be designer carpet and it might be blended. Unless you have a sample from the mill with content listing only wool, but still I would test it. Preferably using the burn test if not then drop a few strands in bleach and if it dissolves within about 5 minutes then its wool. Or if it gets wet it smells like wet dog/sheep its wool but that does not mean its 100%
Ive run into multi million dollar mansions over here that have wool blended with viscose and cotton, worse combination in my opinion. It could have something to do with the moisture in the air since its near the water

 

[sbsscn]

Wait it might be Silk/blended! and silk is also a protein and reacts horribly with the wrong chemistry. I would Definitely do a burn test.

It also kind of reminds me of how it looks when a fire retardant reacts with water....bummer so many variables. Id love to find out what fiber this is and the conclusion.


The more I stare at the photo the more I feel that this is not 100% wool. My gut feelings says there is viscose/rayon involved and possibly fire retardant reaction do to the Reddish spotting

 

[Tcoulter]

Wait it might be Silk/blended! and silk is also a protein and reacts horribly with the wrong chemistry. I would Definitely do a burn test.

It also kind of reminds me of how it looks when a fire retardant reacts with water....bummer so many variables. Id love to find out what fiber this is and the conclusion.


The more I stare at the photo the more I feel that this is not 100% wool. My gut feelings says there is viscose/rayon involved and possibly fire retardant reaction do to the Reddish spotting

Thanks for the input. It could be not 100% wool, but I feel like most of it (the pic of stairs) is. It feels like your basic wool to wool carpet, and smells that way too. I guess I don't really need to care about it now though, since I didn't cause it but I cleaned it up, got 90% of it out, and I just found out that the house is on the market now for 30M, whoever buys it will probably just replace the carpet that is stained.