Smelly Carpet

[dan1166]

We do a lot of skiing on a local river, and one day last week, while towing the boat home, I got caught in a severe downpour. The boat was soaked. I parked the boat in my garage, and the next morning, it smelled just like the fishy water from the river. It seems like the smell is very bad when the carpeting gets wet. :?: Does anyone have an idea, how to eliminate that odor? Your thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[jhiestand]

RE: Smelly Carpet

The only way to completely rid yourself of the smell is to kill the bacteria that is now hanging out in your carpet. I had a similar problem after one of my buddys decided to play U-Boat Commander and plowed my boat into a giant roller, putting about an inch of water over ever square inch of my carpet. I tried about everything and after scouring numerous threads went with a bleach solution as recommended in MalibuBoatOwners Forum. Sprayed the carpet down with a garden sprayer, went over it quickly with a brush and rinsed it at a car wash. Problem solved!

Using bleach scared the **** out of me, but it didn't discolor the carpet! In retrospect I probably should have used colorfast bleach but I had no problems with the real stuff.

[ffmedic74]

RE: Smelly Carpet

Hose the #$%^ out of your carpet and spray a light carpet cleaner on it. Then use an extractor to suck up all the water. Repeat about 6 times and about 10gal later it should be good. After it dries spray a bit of febreze on the carpet and your problems should be solved. The problem is that CC carpet is so thick.

[dan1166]

Re: RE: Smelly Carpet

The only way to completely rid yourself of the smell is to kill the bacteria that is now hanging out in your carpet. I had a similar problem after one of my buddys decided to play U-Boat Commander and plowed my boat into a giant roller, putting about an inch of water over ever square inch of my carpet. I tried about everything and after scouring numerous threads went with a bleach solution as recommended in MalibuBoatOwners Forum. Sprayed the carpet down with a garden sprayer, went over it quickly with a brush and rinsed it at a car wash. Problem solved!

Using bleach scared the heck out of me, but it didn't discolor the carpet! In retrospect I probably should have used colorfast bleach but I had no problems with the real stuff.

What was the ratio with water? or did you use the bleach at full strength?

[redelf75]

RE: Re: RE: Smelly Carpet

Better try one of the enzyme deoderizers. They're sold in pet stores.

[jhiestand]

RE: Re: RE: Smelly Carpet

50/50 was the ratio. Be sure to test it on an inconspicuous area first, but I didn't even use colorfast bleach and had no problems.

[Blue Ski]

Smelly Carpet

I do river skiing too and a smell can develop on hot days in the garage after skiing if the carpet is wet. Since I store it at home I put a fan on the carpet each time it gets put away and I occasionally spray lysol on the carpet. The smell is gone and no impact to the color.

[Grant_West]

If you take a Air hose to your carpet you can blow alot of the dirt and crap that hides in the matted down carpet. You will see the dirt flyng out of the carpet. It will be all over your interior in dust form. Then just blow the interior off. Then do the wash/clean the carpet trick listed above, You will find that if you blow the carpet out it will clean out more than 70% of the dirt thats trapped in your carpet. Good luck.

Just remember Dirt + Water = Mud get rid of the dirt and its easyer to clean the carpets