Gallon of Milk Spilled

Hi all a gallon of milk fell off the back seat, split and made its way into the floor carpet and under the front passenger seat.

I steam cleaned what I could reach but the sour milk smell remains.

Are there drain holes in the bottom of the cab? Can I put a half bucket of soapy water down and hope it can be sopped up and/or drained out?

Advice appreciated on cleaning the milk up!

 

You will need an enzyme cleaner. They have that in pet store or pet section at walmart.

 

Here are some tips.

https://www.carparts.com/blog/how-t...Vkph0r2l6x8Q7HhMrNTSHfQZ52P7hIkXxzLYJxyLYVRNc

 

This^^^. Don’t waste your time trying to use febreeze to mask the odour. It will just come back.

 

I’ve spilled smaller amounts of milk back there and used boiling water to flush and kill everything. I also used steam cleaning fluid mixed in, but I didn’t steam—I made sure all the fabric was saturated in boiling water Then I put pulled some of the panels out and stuck a fan in to help with the drying so it doesn’t get mildew. Sunlight helps too, so open the doors so it’s getting direct sun.

Worked for me, but I didn’t spill a full gallon! Good luck.

 

It'll start smelling like puke in another couple of days.

 

Because of the underlay under the carpet, you might have to pull the seats and carpet, then steam clean the carpet out of the truck. And then while you have the carpet out you can clean up all the floor area of the milk has filled up and dried up on. Otherwise you might never get that smell out until it naturally fades.

 

My wife had a gallon of milk end up under the driver's seat after it slid out of a shopping bag. She was sure she had bought milk but couldn't figure out what happened to it. Fast forward a few weeks later and the milk soured, burst the carton and she finally figured out where the milk had gone. Ended up pulling up the seat and after multiple cleanings, she ended up living with the smell until we traded the car in on her Tacoma.

 

An ozone machine might clear up the smell, but I would guess it would be somewhat temporary?

 

https://www.bissell.com/en-us/product/little-green-hydrosteam-pet-portable-carpet-cleaner-3605F.html

 

at this stage, i would absolutely pull the interior and deep clean the floor carpet while strung up from ladders or similar. with another day to dry it, so at least a 4-day minimum project to pull interior one day, clean the next, let dry, then reinstall

 

agreed!
Skip the workarounds, and get to stripping, it's where you are going to end up anyways.
One of the main time-sucks is drying, but you can really get the material under the carpets and the carpets actually cleaned with them removed from each other.

 

And don't cry over spilt milk...

 

Has a similar thing happen to my work truck. I was on vacation and my boss used the truck and when I got back he told me he spilt a quart of milk but not to worry as he has it professionally detailed.
He wasn’t half way through telling me when I was already planning to completely strip the interior to clean it.
Everything came out, underlay and carpet was hosed off for what seemed like forever then thoroughly dried before reinstalling. Interior floor was washed and rinsed a couple of times.
I think the underlay/carpet cleaning and drying process took 3-4 days but zero smell afterwards.

 

cry over the process to clean it!

 

just an addendum. the real issue here is the padding underneath the carpet. that padding has soaked up the milk, and that is where much of your smell and treatment needs to be focused, on flushing out the milk from that padding. any treatment to the carpet while in the truck is sort of like trying to scratch an itch on an arm in a cast, but by scratching the outside of the cast. it's impossible to get to the real problem unless you're jabbing things under the cast to get to the real itch.

in this case, instead of trying to hose out under the padding within teh truck without spraying everywhere/damaging something else in the interior, and/or blindly jab things under the carpet to get to the root of it, to just pull it and wash the carpet and it's under-padding entirely outside of the truck, where you can get some extreme access to every possible part of it, and really lean into it without worrying about messing something else up in the process will in the end make the process far less painless, and much more of a 'one-n-done' step. even if the last thing anyone really wants to do is entirely gut their truck interior near the beginning of winter.

you'll just never gain enough access with all the seats and trim pieces above the carpet to ever fully get that smell out of the truck otherwise.

 

All of this

 

spot on!
the damage (while not severe) is done. The underside is most likely soaked and there's only one way to get to it.

 

Milk with your cookie?