“Do You Use Water or Powder?” – A True Story

I received a call recently from a lady that left a message for me, simply giving me her phone number to call back. I had looked up her phone number and so was able to call her by name when I returned the call.

By the way, our company cleans carpeting.

After she answered, I told her who I was and she immediately got to the point: “I have just one question for you.” I said, “Fire away Mrs. H.”

“Do you use water or powder?” I hoped she was talking about carpet cleaning. I replied, “We use hot water extraction to…” I never got to finish my sentence. “Not interested” was all she said as she was hanging up.

Well.

Older folks can sometimes be somewhat abrupt on the phone, although I haven’t had anyone hang up on me in mid-sentence for a long time.

The point of this little story? A lot of people still have prejudices and misconceptions about “steam” or hot water extraction carpet cleaning.

I think it’s safe to assume that Mrs. H sure did.

Why is that? There are three basic reasons people think hot water extraction is bad for their carpet:

1. A previous bad experience with a splash-n-dash carpet cleaner that left the carpet way too wet.

2. A previous bad experience with a carpet cleaning bozo that left the carpet way too wet AND used too much cleaning chemical, causing rapid resoiling.

3. They heard that you should wait as long as possible to get it cleaned because… (See Reasons 1 and 2).

There are a lot of guys out there that clean carpeting on side to make beer money for weekends. They are not professionals and have (and continue to) muddy the reputation of companies that are professional and dead serious about giving you the best job possible.

And for the record: Every major carpet mill requires that you use hot water extraction to clean their carpeting. They also expect you to use a certified cleaner (See IICRC.org). Not following these requirements will void a big chunk of your warranty with them.

Too bad Mrs. H never gave me a chance to tell her all of this.

Unfortunately urban legends die hard. I doubt that she would have been convinced.