Currently, we use a brand name carpet cleaner/stain remover after cleaning up the general mess with a wet cloth.
I'm wondering if there's a natural, low-cost alternative to cleaning up such messes that:
- Treats stains, if there's a risk
- Treats the smell
- Kills any bacteria/viruses (if that's what caused it)
- Is safe for children
My son already knows how to twist the nozzle on spray bottles to open them and spray them, so it'd be ideal if whatever we kept in a spray bottle wasn't a poison/exposure risk for children.
While I'm mostly interested in carpet, because it can't be thrown into the washer/dryer, I would be grateful for solutions to cleaning non-removable parts of the car/car seat. Seat belts, in particular, have been resistant to most of our cleaners.
Multi-step methods are fine, but I'd prefer something that doesn't require more than 5-10 minutes of time to complete. Usually when these incidents occur we're already occupied, and don't have much time to spare.
But, long-term soaking techniques are acceptable if they're provided after a quicker solution that does a good enough job until the soaking can be accomplished.
Note: At this time we own a carpet cleaner, so alternative machine-safe carpet cleaner solutions would be valid. However, we don't have and can't currently afford a steam cleaner (because we bought the carpet cleaner), so steam cleaning isn't a viable solution for us.