Cleaning Upholstered Furniture

[asterion]

A previous renter left an upholstered armchair in the storage area of the house. Between the use and the storage, it got pretty dirty. (They probably left it behind because there's a hole in the back of the chair.) I could use another chair in my living room and it fills the corner nicely, easily positioned so that the hole can't be seen. So far, I've killed most of a bottle of Resolve on it trying to get the dirt up and stains out and trying to kill anything that might be on it. So I guess I need to do two things. One is that I need some way of placing an insecticide inside the chair in case anything made it in there. The other is just trying to get the tougher dirt out and getting it clean. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[AskNott]

If your supermarket rents carpet cleaning machines, you can probably rent an upholstery nozzle for the machine. That might be your best bet for cleaning the thing.

As for bugs, do this before cleaning. Spray it thoroughly with ant&roach killer and encase it in plastic before the spray dries. A couple of big trash bags duct-taped together might be big enough. Just before sealing it up, put a small pan of ammonia in the bag. Let it stew in the fumes for overnight or even 24 hours.

If it still smells or looks funky after all that, throw it out.

[gotpasswords]

Poke around with your friends and neighboors and see if you can borrow one of the "spin-scrub" or "steam vac" carpet cleaners that has an upholstery attachment. Most of the supermarket cleaners are just a squirt and suck - they squirt water/carpet cleaner, then suck it up. The rotating bristles really make a difference on upholstery and carpet. The suction on the spin scrub units also tends to be better than the supermarket machines, so the fabric will have less water in it when you're done and will dry faster.