Carpet Cleaning Blog

I was cleaning a home today when I was tapped on the back of my shoulder. The customer asked me if I could help her as she just spilled a half a can of soda on her carpet. I immediately went outside to my truck and pulled out a white terricloth towel. I went back into the house and soaked the towel in hot water. I rinsed out the towel and put it right on the stain where the towel was soaked in soda. Then I went back to the sink and rinsed it out. I went back to the stain and blotted more of the stain until the towel was brown again. I repeated this process 1 more time and the stain was 95% gone. I used a dry towel to press on the remaining stain which the remaining 5% came up. The remaining sugar issues came out in the carpet cleaning process but for the most part the stain was gone and no need for a Sham Wow towel.

We had a house in Portland Oregon this week which had a nice 6×6 stain from a soda can. The customer had tried to the best of their ability to pull it out and had limited success. It seemed as if the stain would go away and then come back and look bigger and darker than before. This is a response that I hear quite frequently. Customers are sometimes succesful in taking out the top part of the stain with a rag or shop-vac if they respond to the stain immediately. More time than not they can’t clean deep enough in the fibers to pull it all out and that is why it returns. The sugar left behind acts as a dirt magnet and that is why the stain looks darker than before the initial cleaning. Now that we are at the heart of the winter season and more dirt is being tracked in the house than normal, it was best that she called me to remove the stain all the way while pulling the left behind sugar that would have continued to be a serious issue.

Yesterday I had a first time customer who had not had her carpets cleaned in 2 years. I explained to her that among other reasons with beige carpets it pretty much shows all dirt and soil and that she should have them cleaned more often. She told me that last time she had them cleaned it took almost 3 days for the carpets to be dry. She had called the carpet cleaner back and he replied that this is normal for carpet drying time. This could not be further from the truth. A professional carpet cleaner should have a powerful truckmount system that will pull most of the moisture out of the carpet before they leave. A professional would have their machine serviced regularly so they can deliver a great service and look forward to a repeat customer.
The customers second concern was that it seemed like it didn’t take long before the carpets looked dirty again. I explained to her that she should expect much of the moiture to be gone or more than likely they did not do a good job cleaning the carpet. If the machine they used didn’t pull the moisture out then it didn’t pull the dirt out either. The spray from the cleaning wand knocked the dirt off the carpet fibers but the dirt remained in the water that the machine didn’t pull out. I hope this information is helpful in your next decision to hire a carpet cleaner.