We have a toddler and two cats. This means our carpet is often decorated with spots.

I know you’re supposed to attack spots as soon as they happen. In a perfect world, I would. Many times, especially if it’s a cat issue, I don’t even realize there’s a spot until I step in it. If it’s a spill, I’m usually trying to chase down my child and don’t have the chance to sit down and scrub.

This left us with several spots on the light beige carpet. A few weeks ago we tried a spot cleaner designed specifically for pets and kids. It said it was non-toxic and environmentally friendly. It didn’t work.

So, I did a little research and discovered that the super-cleaner — white vinegar and water — was also good at attacking dirty carpets. One anonymous poster to an article about carpet spots suggested using a white towel to do the scrubbing.

Last night, I brought out my white vinegar/water spray bottle and white towels and set to work.

The white vinegar worked remarkably well on most of the spots! I was very impressed, although also fairly exhausted. We really had to scrub, scrub, scrub to get the spots out.

Most of the spots are gone. There are a few stubborn stains that I plan to re-attack this evening.

I highly recommend this method to get spots out of your carpet, especially old spots. Be prepared for a good workout, though.

Now that we have erased most of the carpet stains, I’ve taken a preventive step to keep this from happening again — I’ve scattered throw rugs all over our living room. It’s not the prettiest room, but hopefully it’ll help keep the carpet clean longer.