Felix.

My 3 year old daughter has decided to drop a vase of lilys onto the floor - which has just had a new carpet put on it less than a month ago.....

Now, the pollen has stained the carpet over quite a large area. Does anyone have any tips or advice on how to remove these stains.

Brendan Hughes

Sellotape, apparently, and don't rub (google "pollen stain removal")

"First I used sellotape to lift off all the pollen. It took quite a while to really get off all the loose pollen, leaving just a yellow stain. On the web, the advice I saw was to then hang the item in the sun to bleach the stain away. However, this is England, so I decided not to wait for the sun!

Instead, I used a bar of stain removing soap (here in the UK, it's called Vanish), lathering it up and rubbing on the stain, leaving for a while, then rinsing and repeating. I did this three or four times until the stain had noticeably faded quite a bit, then washed the coat in the washing machine as per the label. The stain has completely gone"

jowl

Hope it's not a big room - it'll be a b@stard gettingthe carpet in the washing machine

Nicks VR4

Can you claim on the house insurance ?