I just Rug Doctored the carpeting in one of my rooms on Sunday. Initially it smelled great, but today there's a sour smell emanating from the room. It's still fairly wet.
I've seen examples of the things that are living/growing under carpeting, and it's not pretty. This is probably fairly old, so I'm not entirely surprised it smells bad.
Has anyone ever cleaned a carpet only to discover that the moisture caused mold to grow underneath and the carpeting had to be removed? I'm fine with ripping it out and painting the sub-floor, or whatever's under there, but just curious what I might be facing.
I'd call a pro to come out and steam it and remove the excess moisture.
I would call a professional carpet cleaning company. If it's just the one room, it shouldn't be expensive, and they'll be able to get it a lot cleaner than a Rug Doctor, AND will be able to pull out the excess moisture, too. I would imagine that the smell is actually coming from the carpet pad below (which over the years will have absorbed all the stuff that spilled onto the carpet, and now, being wet, smells gross).
Or, like you said, just remove the carpet entirely. Then you'll KNOW the floor is clean!
Run a fan and a dehumidifier in the room till it's dried out.
Keep the air moving.
You can also put in a few buckets of Damp Rid to help draw the moisture out.
This is one of the many reasons I HATE carpet.
I had wall to wall carpeting in rental property. I had the worst tenants ever. I'm convinced they NEVER vacuumed or cleaned the carpet their entire time living in the unit. When the moved out in the middle of the night without notice. I went into the apartment to discover the pristine camel colored carpeting was now black, brown and gray. Too dirty to clean. So I had to remove it, the padding was filthy too. So it had to go too. Adding insult to injury the flooring underneath was a mess. I had to lay all new floors through the entire space excluding the kitchen and bathroom which has ceramic tile.
I'm grateful that nightmare is over and never again will any of my rental properties have carpeting. I've learned my lesson. A very expensive lesson. Lol.
It shouldn't be so wet when you finish that it takes 2 days to dry. The machine should have sucked up enough water that it would only take a couple of hours to dry. Since it's taking so long, you probably will have problems now.
No, what you're describing is not normal. I'd say the Rug Doctor you rented is/was broken. The vacuuming part should have nearly dried the carpet and if you put a fan blowing on it, moving it to different sections to help it dry.
It might also be that you didn't manage the machine right. It's a bit complicated sometimes of different versions.
The carpet should have been dry that first day. And even if you didn't suction it up well it should have been dry by the next morning.
If your carpet is at "that" point where you really don't mind then I'd probably pull it up. If you want to keep it I think I'd use something in the water that kills bacteria/germs and other junk.
