How to get rid of sour milk from a car?

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LightngSVT

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Nutshell: minivan, spilled milk, never cleaned up & now it stinks. Customers car, how to clean?



I have a customer (friend of a friend) who wants the interior of their minivan cleaned. Joy. I know its bad because they says its a "challenge". What worries me was the statement "I think there was some milk spilt in there and it was just never cleaned up. If you could at least make it smell better......" :shocked :shocked



Im thinking I may pass on this job as I doubt I can really do it justice. But if I were to take it on, how would you recommend cleaning the sour milk and smell from the van? I would assume removing the carpets and seats, using some sort of enzyme, an extractor (have a Bissel) and letting it dry thourougly before reassembling? Im also wondering if it may need an ozone treatment? Ideas?
 
Thats a tough one. If it was a lot of milk and never cleaned up you might have to pull the carpet back to clean the floor board.
 
The problem is the milk may have soaked through the carpet and into any padding. Check this product out. http://www.topoftheline.com/32ozdoubleo.html After throughly extracting the area, you would want to use the above linked product or similar product to kill any remaining odor causing bacteria. Ozone would probably help too, but may not kill the bacteria that is deep into the carpet fibers or padding. Ozone would defintely help to get the residual odor off of everything else Good luck, and charge accordingly.
 
I had (have) a similar situation . . . a regular with a Suburban, home to 5 unruly children who consume, spill, and wipe, their grubby little fingers with everything known to man :rofl



I pre-treat with Hi-Temp Protein Stain Remover, extract with TOL Rug Renew, and finish with FK200 Mask-it Odor Killer. Done.
 
Thanks guys! Some good products you have listed. is there anything local that would work as good? Some thing like Odo-ban thats sold at Sam's club? So basically the steps would (hopefully) be:



1. Pre treat with enzyme cleaner

2. Extract with regular auto carpet shampoo

3. Apply an "air freshener"



Im still hesitant because I dont like doing work that may or may not turn out well. Sounds like these kinds of situations can be a real headache.
 
I would suggest Just Rite's 1-2-3 Odor Free Kit.

I have used it for pet's accident. Give the owner a call - he is pretty "chatty".

He will tell you whether his product will work for spilled milk.



I think any solution that kills the current bacteria but leave the lactose material around

would not work.

As long as there is some "food" left in the carpet and backboard, new bacteria will come back to eat the "food" and the by-product would be the nasty smell again.

You need something to quickly mop up the food source.



The Just Rite kit claims to have live bacteria in the solution (with enzyme). You are supposed

to spray this stuff on the spill and place a wet towel on top. The theory is that the bacteria

will eat the spill and multiply like crazy (with the wet tower keeping a "livable" environment).

Once the food source is exhausted, the colony will die. Then, you spray the second solution

to get rid of the odor. Then, you do the third optional solution to get rid of the stain.



Unfortunately, you cannot get it OTC.
 
The enzyme pre-treat will help to remove the stain. An extractor with hot water will obviously remove most of the remaining milk residue. You still have to destroy the remaining bacteria. As stated ozone can help with this, but you should use a professional caliber product made specifically for this task.
 
Kids & Pets







Available at Target. Use as per instructions for a wonderful result. I would probably mix a small batch of Enzyme Killer and APC with water in a bucket so that if the spilling is heavy, you are able to allow it plenty of deep soaking time into the padding.
 
So kids and Pets is an enzyme like the Pro stuff? Anyone ever tried Odo-Ban? Im going to call the customer back and at least look at the van. Thanks!!!!
 
I would give the OdoBan a shot after using the enzyme cleaner/carpet extractor. Linky



I used it to remove the last traces of stench from my refrigerator that went thru Hurricane Rita. Just imagine the "aroma" of a loaded fridge that has been without power during the summer for about 3 weeks. :soscared: The OdoBan is good stuff.
 
Sean, Have you used Kids-n-Pets on a milk problem before? I see from their website that they dont specifically mention mil but do say liquid based stains / odors and food and beverages. It also says to not dilute K&P, but you mix it with APC?



Would it be st to saturate with K&P, let soak for say 30-40 minutes then extract. Then go over the rest of the interior with diluted Odo-ban in the extractor? She told me that for now she just wants the smell eliminated (and interior cleaned) as much as possible, she wants to wait on the full detail until summer.
 
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