Advice on Carpet Cleaning

Hi J.,

I wanted to offer some guidance to you and prevent you from making a costly mistake by substituting professional carpet cleaning to DIY. Carpeting is one of the largest investments in any home, and professional care and maintenance should always be followed. DID YOU KNOW? In order to maintain your carpets' warranty, professional carpet care and maintenance is required on a YEARLY basis? By not following this requirement, you will void out your warranty. Should you experience premature wear, ineffective stain resistance or lack of carpet performance, the first thing the manufacterer will ask will be, "Have you had your carpets professionally cleaned on a yearly basis?" If the answer is no, your warranty may be voided. The goal of any carpet cleaning attempt is to: identify the types of spots/soiling, effectively and thoroughly remove (extract) dirt, some agitation, moisture control,the use of some type of pre-conditioner to emulsify any stubborn soils and condition the carpet fibers, and lastly; effective and thorough extraction of all cleaning agents. Key words EFFECTIVE DIRT EXTRACTION and CONTROL OF MOISTURE. A professional carpet cleaner invests in a lot of training and certifications to understand carpet fibers and how to effectively extract damaging soils and clean with the proper cleaning agents.

My husband and I own Joy Carpet Dry Cleaning in Plano and we've been in business 26 years. We see time and time again homeowners taking on DIY carpet cleaning attempts with distastrous results. We serviced a customer this past week who was desperate to have her carpets cleaned after her husband rented a carpet cleaning machine. Although they had good intentions and wanted to get it done as cheaply as possible, they immediately discovered that they should have invested in having the carpet professionally cleaned. She told us that the carpets remained very wet for 7 days. The carpet was an off white Frieze and it looked dingy, all of the spots returned in a worse state than before, and lastly the room had a mildewy pet odor. The carpet was just 2 years old! We restored their carpet to like-new condition leaving it soft, DRY, fresh smelling and the spots we cleaned out do not wick back because we use the Host Dry Extraction System (www.hostdry.com) which is the #1 rated dry extraction method in the market today.

For your tan carpet with many spots, we will provide a written guarantee that you will be completely satisfied in our effective cleaning and removal of the damaging soils, with no spot wick back. Your carpet will be ready-to-enjoy immediately and you will be happy with your decision and investment. Please call me at ###-###-#### if we can be of any further help and to learn about our mamasource.com specials.

Sincerely,

M. Moore, CEO
Joy Carpet Dry Cleaning

Professionals do the best job! We call them out every few months to save our carpet. The Garcia Carpet Cleaning is very reasonably priced.

I would love to know about the $99 places and if they are any good. I've rented the Rug Doctors from the grocery store and they did a great job. However, it is about $30 to rent the machine for 24 hours and another $10-$15 for the cleaning solution. Unless you are able to clean all the carpets in a 24 hour period it may be cheaper to get a company. Also, you have to factor in the cost of your time. I also think a professional job will last longer. I noticed after a few months that my rugs looked as dingy as they did before I cleaned them.

We've done our carpet ourselves for years, and have been quite happy. It's especially nice to have a cleaner in the house with kids and pets, for when they track in mud or spill (my daughter just spilled a full bowl of taco soup on the carpet last week, and you'd never know).

You can rent one the first time if you'd like to see if you're happy with the results before you make the investment. I know grocery stores used to rent them.. don't know if they still do.

Good luck!
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I always recommend buying a cleaner and doing it at home. There are many brands to choose from, our bissell works just great, and it is a bit of money to fork out at once, especially if you are on a tight budget, but if you need something for the meantime I would recommend the 'Green Macine' its awesome. Its great for a spot clean right after something gets spilled.