Hello we have a piece of carpet from an FRC official competition. We are trying to place it in living room for FRC at home. But the carpet odor (not fungal smell) is quite notable. Anyone has experience or idea on how to reduce the smell?
(We are in Canada, so widely open window is not a great choice here…)
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Short of bombarding it with Febreeze (a fun exercise in any new-to-you space; I prefer to get two bottles and re-enact the lobby scene from The Matrix), ventilating whatever fumes or odor are coming off is the only solution I can think of.
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The best and only was I can spray Febreze from now on
Bottle the odor and sell it to me.
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It’s possible the the grain of the carpet had gone bad. You could try asking @R.C, I hear he has extensive experience measuring FRC carpet grain.
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that will be $10.72
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$3.64 and you’ve got yourself a deal.
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$9.71 final offer.
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Something with a foul odor? From a robotics competition? That’s insane.
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Having an idea of what is causing the smell will help you combat it. If you have mildew or similar, febreeze will only mask the odor.
Spraying diluted vinegar can help counter smells - especially those caused by mildew/bacteria/spilled milk. If you don’t add enough water to the vinegar you will have a new problem. Ask me how I know 
A generous sprinkling of baking soda on the carpet and vacuuming it up hours later is another common method. Unlike vinegar method, you can’t create a new problem. Idk the science behind it but baking soda should absorb/neutralize the smells.
As you recognized in your post, ventilation is going to be your best friend.
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Cue our annual “Please wake up early enough to shower” speech.
We don’t get to give it in person, so maybe we’ll just post it here in March.
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we had a mandatory “shower when you wake up and shower before you hit the bunk” rule for our members, no-one likes being in a small van full of sweaty and anxious teenagers
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Idk if you have Home Depot there but you can rent a carpet extractor. It basically pushes a water and cleaner solution through the carpet and vacuums it rightback out. Caution, don’t have any flooring you care about under the carpet when you do this, you may wreck it. If you do an extraction, it is imperative to get all the moisture out thereafter. Fans and windows and stuff. There’s a couple schools of thought, you could run your heat up high to warm it out, or you can run your air conditioning down cool to lower the humidity of the room.
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I tried both of those at once. Do not recommend. 
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Thanks! I’ll try vinegar, water, baking soda, febreze one by one, hope I can vaccum one out before sprayin next…yayayah I’ll definitely rent a vaccum and extractor for this lmao
If it is the new carpet off-gassing smell time really is the only solution. You can spray it down with Fabreeze or an odor remover like Pure Ayre but the smell will come back until the off-gassing slows down. I wouldn’t recommend the baking soda treatment because you really can’t vacuum it all out.
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I think the only long term solution is professional carpet cleaning. They have extractors and all that for a reason.
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I don’t understand what everyone’s talking about.
FRC carpet smells great.
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