A woman was left baffled after discovering strange stains on her sofa – and people have been left seriously grossed out after they guessed what was causing them
Despite our best efforts, wear and tear in our homes is inevitable.
From broken cupboard doors to stubborn cooking spills and unexplained stains on items like sofas. This was the case for one woman who was left baffled by the mysterious stains on her sofa. She hadn’t spilled anything on it, so she turned to Reddit for answers on what could be causing them and how to clean them.
In a post on the cleaning tips forum, she wrote: “What is causing these stains on our couch?! We haven’t spilled anything on it, we sit on it fully clothed. It hasn’t gotten wet in any way. What is causing these stains and is there a way to prevent them?”
Despite her insistence that nothing had been spilled, the stains looked suspiciously like liquid marks. When fellow Redditors suggested they were caused by sweat, dust, grime and skin flakes – people were seriously grossed out.
One user bluntly responded: “sweat”, to which the original poster replied: “Ewww.” Another added: “Sweat, environment dust, grime, skin flakes. When wet, it’ll create these stains. As much as I love the look of fabric sofas, I avoid them as much as possible.”
A Redditor chimed in on a debate over a mystery couch stain, suggesting: “Looks like water stains to me, I had almost the exact same stain on my couch of the same colour and it was from water.
“Generally, if you have a different type of stain and you want to clean it up, you should use distilled water. Tap water or even purified water has minerals in it and those minerals cause water stains when they dry.”
They added a potential solution: “There’s a chance that getting a spray bottle and carefully spritzing it with distilled water will help lift the stain, but it’s a big job and you might just move the stain around if you aren’t careful. You can also consider reaching out to professional cleaning companies. Although they usually quote for cleaning the entire sofa, not just the affected area.”
Another person joked about the possible cause: “Do you sit on that couch with jeans? It could be crocking which is colour transfer due to agitation”, prompting the couch owner to mention her partner does wear black jeans on it. This led to the humorous speculation: “Sounds like your partner has some ferocious back of the knee sweat lol.”
