Any chance of saving carpet?

[Rattnalle]

Mould is alive. Bleach kills it. Then you wash out residual smell and having killed the mould it doesn't come back.

More or less at least.

I've successfully gotten rid of the smell from a smoker's car using just upholstery shampoo and elbow grease. Doing the roof made a huge difference.

[crimsonv70]

Sorry to bump a super old post -- (I lost my login). Now that I'm back I just thought I'd update on what finally happened:

The carpet was just too molded from sitting for weeks in about 2 inches of water. It was soaked in bleach and left out in direct sun for days. So many attempts made to save the carpet...but alas, it was too late.

It was a heinous job, but I went ahead and took out all the seats (with help), removed all the carpet, bleached the Heck out of the bottom frame, put the drivers seat back in, and drove around with heat on max blast (foot only) for an hour...

... Then I took a trip to the junkyards, lucked out and found a matching carpet ! reinstalled everything with the new carpet.

It still took a week or so driving around with max heat and windows down to get the mold smell out. But finally, my baby was good as usual again!