Leaving potted plants on top of a rug can be a very expensive mistake, depending on the rug. Over time, water seeps through the pot and creates moisture in the rug. Often times this is a very slow process, however once the damage is finally spotted, it is far too late for the rug.
The moisture from the plant will create tiny mold spores which slowly eat away and deteriorate the rugs foundation. Sometimes the area affected will turn brown and stiff to the touch. Most times, the fibers are so weak they will just break apart and shred to pieces.
There is no way to "fix" a dry rot problem. Once the rugs fibers have deteriorated your best hope would be a repair job to fix the patch that has been dry rotted, but in many cases the damage is beyond repair and/or too costly in reference to the rug in question.
Below are some pictures of a recent rug we received a call for. This customer called us in for area rug cleaning nyc and upon inspection we were able to discover a 9 inch hole straight through the rug which was a result of dry rot from watering a plant on top of the rug.
The customer was shocked to find the hole there and we explained to her how it happened. In this case, the rug is a very old and valuable piece that the customer would like to save. We took the rug back to our facility for repair, which will entail re-weaving the rug using a variety of weaving and knotting techniques, recreating the missing warp and wefts on a loom and matching the original design as best as possible.
Once the rug repair has been completed we will then make sure all repairs are secure and wash the entire rug. The end result should show little to no signs of the dry rot ever occurring.
