Yes. It’s best for a handmade rug to be washed in a cleaning facility by a professional. Oriental rug cleaners have specially designed equipment that removes dust, flushes cool soapy water through the rug’s pile and foundation and then saturates the rug with clean rinse water. Finally, the machine extracts excess moisture from the carpet which is then hung to dry. Professional cleaning takes about two weeks.

It depends on what has spilled. The first line of defense against a spill is to keep a small cleaning kit handy. The kit should contain dishwashing liquid or low sudsing hair shampoo, ammonia, a commercial dry-cleaning agent, white vinegar and plenty of clean white rags. DO NOT USE WOOLITE or other high-sudsing soaps that are too hard to rinse out. Residual soap attracts dirt.....quickly.

Treat all spills promptly. For most common everyday spills, such as black coffee, wine, mid and milk, start by blotting up excess moisture until the area feels almost dry. Mix one capful of shampoo or dishwashing liquid with 12 ounces of cool to lukewarm tap water. There is no need to use club soda.) Apply to the stain. Gently lather and blot again. Rinse until the suds are gone and blot again. Prop up the damp area so air reaches both sides for quick drying. Before cleaning up mud, allow it to dry and then vacuum.

Use ammonia instead of shampoo for cleaning fresh urine stains. For urine stains more than 2-3 days old, do not use ammonia as the cleaning agent. Use shampoo as above and DO USE a dilute solution of one part white vinegar to six parts water for the final rinse. We are simply applying the chemistry of PH values to this exercise....and since urine ultimately converts to ammonia on its own...it stands to reason that adding more ammonia to an old stain is counterproductive.

Most food and animal stains can be cleaned with a simple soap and water mixture. Use lukewarm water on sugar based stains (ice cream, cough syrup, coffee with sugar). Use solvents, not soap on oil based stains, such as shoe polish and WD40. Cover wax spills with brown paper and apply a hot iron. The wax will transfer from the rug onto the paper.