Somebody stuck a wad of chewing gum under my door, on that black matte finish plastic under the door sills. Most of the gum just kind of *popped* off with a little prodding, but there's a little bit that didn't come off. Anyone got a suggestion?

Thanks!

 

Freeze it with ice? Goo Gone?

 

try rubbing alcohol

 

There are 2 standard suggestions for cleaning the black plastic:

1. Rubbing Alcohol

2. Peanut Oil (straight or by way of creamy peanut butter)

Both are used by saturating the area for several minutes (the peanut butter makes this easy), some gentile nudging with a toothbrush or some other small soft brush, and following up with a good rubber dressing that has UV protectants.

Both of these are the general suggestions given when people ask about removing wax from the pores of the black plastic, but I would think that they would help you as well.

I also like the Goo-Gone suggestion above, but you may have to follow up with idea 1 or 2 above.

 

Thanks to all the people who replied to this thread.

It seems to me that I've heard peanut oil (or butter) suggested as a way of removing chewing gum from other surfaces as well - clothing or upholstery, perhaps? Anyway, I think I'll give that a try first...

Thanks again!

 

Another thought...

If you are in a cold climate, you may be better off with a bit of heat using the above processes. A hair dryer may just do the trick to warm up the gum before treatment. It's only a guess, but I'd think that cold gum would be a bit tougher to dislodge, though I've heard of icing gum to get it out of hair... Hmm... It might be worth while to try ice and then heat if the tricks above don't work.

The more important questions: What kind of A$$ would put gum on someone else's car and how many years should he/she spend burning in hell to pay for that crime?

 

Another way of looking at this is to just be grateful the idiot didn't have something sharp in his pocket!

 

Re: using peanut butter to remove gum, I can't help but be reminded of the Simpsons episode ("23 short films about springfield") where Lisa has gum stuck in her hair, and Marge tries to help:

"The trick to getting out gum.. is peanut butter! There. Now that gum should lift right out. Hmmm..... maybe it needs a little Mayonnaise to get going. Okay, you go sit in the sun and let it melt in."