Well it's finally done. My basement carpet was cleaned professionally today and it looks much better. So much better than I dearly wish I'd done this right away when the damage happened. The delay resulted in some imperfections that may never be completely fixed, and if we'd attended to the water problem right away it could have been cleaned back to original condition. Unfortunately I still have some left over mildew stains in the deep ruts where the heavy furniture sat.

The good news is that those deep creases will eventually relax and I can use a concentrated color safe bleach solution combined with my hand held steam cleaner to continually work to get those mildew stains to come out. The pros thought it would eventually come out with repeated bleaching efforts. They did a fabulous job on everything else. The rust stains are gone, the carpet is actually its original color again, and I had no idea how dirty it had become. It was fascinating to see the line between what they had cleaned and what was still dirty. That "off white" colored carpet was actually gray and I hadn't even noticed!