One of my renters "dropped" a pen onto the carpet and left a ghastly stain. He's got a temper, so I think he stomped on the pen. I asked him what kind of pen it was because ball point inks contain different ingredients than, say, fountain pens, and maybe even roller pens. His response was basically "Duh, I dunno".


The ink is blue. I tried various stain removers. Some seemed to help, but not enough, others just spread the stain.

As a last resort, I used acetone (tested it on a sample of the carpet first). This worked the best but there's still a dark area where the previous work was done.

Is there a solvent that will remove all inks? Alternatively, how could I lightly bleach the area (or would that leave the whole area a light blue?)?

Thanks for any help.