# Purple Mystery Stain



## Rose Pink (Sep 13, 2006)

Our house was built in the '50s.  A previous owner remodeled the kitchen in the '80s.  We moved in in the early 90s.  In the past year a grape-purple colored stain has appeared on the kitchen vinyl floor near the stove.  It is growing larger.  It is also where the flooring coves up against the kickplate of the adjacent cabinet.  Any clues what this might be?  It is coming up from beneath the vinyl and is not something that was spilled on the surface.


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## Patri (Sep 13, 2006)

It is the blood stain working its way to the surface. The body is buried beneath the flooring. Why do you think he remodeled?


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## wackymother (Sep 13, 2006)

Patri said:
			
		

> It is the blood stain working its way to the surface. The body is buried beneath the flooring. Why do you think he remodeled?



I wish I had said that.


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## bobcat (Sep 14, 2006)

wackymother said:
			
		

> I wish I had said that.


Could it be some kind of glue under the floor? Can you lift up a small section and see what is under it? You can bring it to a carpet place and have them look at it.


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## Rose Pink (Sep 14, 2006)

bobcat said:
			
		

> Could it be some kind of glue under the floor? Can you lift up a small section and see what is under it? You can bring it to a carpet place and have them look at it.


 
Glue had occured to me also.  I wonder what would make it do that?  Pulling up even a small piece of flooring would leave a hole so it will have to wait until we can replace the entire floor.  I just want to make sure we are not causing more problems by ripping it out rather than just screwing a new subfloor on top.


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## Rose Pink (Sep 14, 2006)

Patri said:
			
		

> It is the blood stain working its way to the surface. The body is buried beneath the flooring. Why do you think he remodeled?


 
That could explain the ghost in the toilet.


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## wackymother (Sep 14, 2006)

It might be the glue reacting with the vinyl floor itself or the subfloor. That shouldn't happen if the installers used the "right" glue, but people do weird things when they're renovating. 

We redid our bathrooms and found that the previous owners had never ripped out the older walls when they redid the bathrooms in the 1970s--they just built new walls three inches inside the old ones. (If this were someone else's house, the underneath bathroom walls would have been magnificent old-fashioned beauties, but because it's my house, they were hideous cringe-worthy uglyfests.) On the positive side, we gained six inches across the width of the bathroom!


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## azsunluvr (Sep 14, 2006)

When I had water seep under the vinyl, it turned it a blue/purple color. Was there a water spill?


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## Rose Pink (Sep 15, 2006)

azsunluvr said:
			
		

> When I had water seep under the vinyl, it turned it a blue/purple color. Was there a water spill?


 
No. Now the basement bathroom is another matter altogether. The black stains coming up under that vinyl I definitely believe to be due to water.


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## bobcat (Sep 15, 2006)

Rose Pink said:
			
		

> No. Now the basement bathroom is another matter altogether. The black stains coming up under that vinyl I definitely believe to be due to water.


The black stains could be mold????


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## Rose Pink (Sep 15, 2006)

bobcat said:
			
		

> The black stains could be mold????


 
Possibly but I suspect it is something else. At some point in the past, linoleum (not vinyl) type tile was glued onto the concrete basement floor. We are assuming (though we haven't paid to have it tested) that, due to the age--the tile contains asbestos as does the mastic used to glue it down. When we moved in we had it "painted" over with some sort of black stuff that was supposed to be for sealing asbestos. Then we had sheet vinyl flooring laid over that. We thought we were doing the right thing to leave the asbestos in place and encapsulate it. However, all the flaws from the original floor telegraphed through. The black stains could be the black stuff that was painted over the tile. The vinyl has also suffered from three kids and very hard wear. Even when I scrub it down on my hands and knees or use my steamer, it won't come clean. It looks absolutely horrid. Because it is so uneven, I don't think I can put ceramic type tile over it. A new vinyl floor would soon have the original problems telegraph through it as well. Trying to remove the mess would cost far more money than I want to think about. The Home Depot guy suggested nailing a new subfloor over the whole thing and then tiling. For now, I am doing nothing--except wondering about the purple stains in the kitchen and where the ceiling leak is coming from.


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## cvmar (Sep 16, 2006)

We had the same thing happen to us! The purple stain was near the sliding glass door. I originally thought it was some type of a stain but no amount of cleaning would remove it so I ended up putting an area rug over it and then it grew larger and darker! We cut up a small portion to see if it was wet but it was totally dry. It must have had something to do with the glue interacting with the vinyl. We ended up putting in a new vinyl floor over the top of the old one and have had no problems since and that was 6 years ago.


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## Rose Pink (Sep 17, 2006)

cvmar said:
			
		

> have had no problems since and that was 6 years ago.


 
Our floor had been down for more than 15 years before the stains showed up.  I just wonder, "why now?"    The vinyl has darkened to a browner tone under the fridge and where the heat vents are so heat, it seems, darkens the vinyl but is not the cause of the purple.  It is not water.  We even considered if it was somehow related to the yellowjacket hornets that have camped in the air intake to the furnace room but it is not in the same location.  I think it is somehow related to the glue but just don't understand what the conditions are that would make it show up after all these years.

Hope you continue to have success with your newer floor.  We've decided that when we remodel we are ripping out the entire thing and starting over with new subfloor and probably tile.  

DH says he is never buying an older home again.  If we ever move he wants a brand new one built.  But . . .  I think they have their problems, too.  I've heard so many horror stories of sinking foundations, etc etc.


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## midwest6 (Sep 18, 2006)

water + vinyl + glue = black
heat + vinyl + glue = brown
grease + vinyl + glue = purple?


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## cvmar (Sep 18, 2006)

RP

Our house was also old, built in 1964 however the previous owners had updated the house several years before we bought it in 1991 so the vinyl wasn't too old and it stayed mystery spot free for the first few years. If you do choose tile for the floor when you remodel you may also want to look at heating areas of the tile where you will be standing most of the time such as in front of the sink and cooktop. I have worked for a residential remodel contractor for 18 years and we put in a lot of heated tile floors and our clients love them. Most of the time in bathrooms as the majority of the  kitchens in the Seattle area are done in some type of hardwood.


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