We recently did a carpet cleaning job in Vancouver. It was a rental unit and was trashed. It was near UBC and a grad student had been renting the unit for the past three years. He has numerous roommates over the years and the unit had been ground zero for many "epic" parties as described by the renter. 

The unit looked like it had never been vacuumed. To say the carpet was full of dust bunnies would be the understatement of the year. We always pre-vaccumm the carpet to ensure that out pre-spray binds to the dirt that lays below the surface rather than the dirt on the surface which is easily removed with a decent vacuum. 

Once we had vacuumed the carpet we applied a high ph cleaning solution to all of the carpet area. We let the solution dwell for 20 minutes. We cranked up the psi on our truck mount carpet cleaning unit and began extracting and rinsing with a low ph cleaning solution. A low ph cleaning solution reduces surface tension and ensures that no residue will be left behind.  No residue prevents rapid resoling. 

The carpet cleaning was successful and all of the stains and traffic lane patters were removed. 

 

Well this was an interesting call that I am sure other carpet cleaners may have passed on. About two weeks ago a customer from Vancouver called me and booked a carpet cleaning. It was a simple job in so far as it was 2 bedrooms, hallway, living room and dinning room. No pet stains or any other type of specialty stain removal was needed. Then the day before the appointment, the customer called me and told me that her husband had tripped and hit his head on the corner of his nightstand and had bled a little bit on the carpet.

I figured that a little bit of blood would not be an issue. Wow I was wrong. I arrived at the home the next day and was shocked at what I saw. Blood was everywhere. It was in the bedroom, in the hallway, in the living room and dinning room. It was though he had walked throughout the house dripping blood all over his carpets on purpose.

I will admit that I was kinda grossed out by it. But the thing that bothered me the most is the extent of blood actually on the carpet and the amount I was told over the phone that was on the carpet. Huge difference between the two. When I saw it I almost turned down the job. However, being the nice guy (customer was getting married that week and some functions were being held at the house) and liking a challenge I started the job.

Unfortunately I cannot go into detail of how exactly I roomed the blood because it is a closely held trade secrecy that has been passed down from generation to generation (carpet cleaning runs in our blood= no pun intended). 

The results far exceeded my expectations. I think the carpet cleaning was so successfully as because the blood was fresh. The point you should take home from this little story is to let a carpet cleaning service company address whatever stains or spills you have sooner rather than later.

By Ed Scott

I had an interesting job this past month. The customer found us by googling “carpet cleaning Coquitlam.” The job was a ground floor 2 bedroom apartment in Coquitlam. Consequently, we were able to use our truck mount cleaning system. On most condo's we use our powerful portable machine because usually the unit is inaccessible with out truck mount. While the portable is powerful, it can be time consuming and labour intensive to use. Plus, I love using 230 plus water temperatures to clean carpet. The suction is another reason. With 15 Hg of lift and over 400 CFM what is not to love about having the fastest dry times?

This appointment was booked over the phone as was the estimate. The customer told me that she had read great things reviews about our company and decided to give us a try. The first thing that jumped out at me about this customer was that she was doing her due diligence before hiring a carpet cleaner. This usually occurs because of a bad experience with another carpet cleaning company.

I arrived 15 minutes early to make sure the unit could be accessible with our truck-mount. Everything was fine so I buzzed the home owner to let her know that we had arrived. We began the job as always with a walkthrough.

The first room was ordinary in so far as their was visible traffic lanes, a grey path, leading from the entry way to the bed and from the bed to the closet. The second room was a shocker! Our home owner is also a pet owner. Her dog, to shield him from embarrassment we shall call Fido, had gone number 2 at the enrty way of the door. The pet stain had happend sometime late last year. Of course the homeowner had tried to clean it up the best she could but the damage had already been done. I explained to the home owner that I could not guarantee that I would remove the stain since the accident had occurred so long ago.

After setting up our machine and unrolling the hoses we began by thoroughly vacuuming the carpet areas. We then mixed up a enzyme based pre-spray with a heavy dose sodium bicarbonate. This additive would add the much needed kick to our regular pre-spray to effectively treat the large stain in the second bedroom. After the unit was pre-sprayed we let it the solution dwell on the carpets for about fifteen minutes. We used a cordless drill with a brush head to agitate the solution in to the carpet in the heavily stained areas.

The final step was extraction. We extracted with our Rotovac 360i and a heavy duty rinse agent (acidic) at a operating temperature of 230 degrees. As you can see by the pictures the job turned out wonderful. The homeowner was impressed and extremely happy that the dark pet stain was removed from the second bedroom. In fact, she was so happy that she left us a glowing review on Google Plus.

By Ed Scott

I must say that I love cleaning dirty carpet! When a potential customer calls me and starts telling me about their carpet and how dirty is I become excited. I love a challenge and the possibility of making something beautiful again fits well with my results orientated personality. 

This week I had a call from a customer in Richmond who decided to spray paint his fire palce in his basement. This did not turn out well. The fire place turned of perfectly but unfortunately he did a real number on his carpet and upholstery. 

This was one of the cases in which I knew I had an opportunity to make a life time customer if I could deliver results. 

For this job I used a heavy duty pre-spray and cleaned it twice. The first pass was done with just hot water (230 degrees) and the second pass was done with pre-spray with a solvent additive. I let the pre-spray dwell for 20 minutes before I cleaned it with a Rotovc. 

I also cleaned the upholstery with a heavy duty solvent based pre-spray. The home owner was going to through out the couch if I could not get it clean so he have me a lot of latitude with what products I could use on it. The couch turned out well. 

In the end the customer was thrilled that I was able to return his basement carpet and upholstery back to normal. 

Ed Scott

 What I have written Below is a cautionary tale of how NOT to deal with pet stains if you are a home owner or renter and if you are a landlord be very selective for whom you rent your unit too! 

 Typically around the middle of the month I receive some last minute calls for people moving out on the 15th. Almost always you can hear the urgency in the callers voice. Having the carpets cleaned professionally  sometimes is over looked when tenants are looking for a new place to live, packing and moving. More often then not this this will occur the case when roommates are involved.

This week I had young man call me in the afternoon to book an appointment. I was just returning from carpet cleaning in Surrey and told him that I could squeeze him in the following day in the late afternoon.  This did not work for him since his landlord was coming at noon the following day for a move out inspection. Consequently, he needed the carpets cleaned that evening. Since he only lived 5 minutes away from my house I agreed. 

I asked him the typical questions: how many areas do you need cleaned, do you have pets, is their an elevator in the building and parking. He wanted 5 areas cleaned and he did have pets and their was and elevator and a underground for parking. He did mention that his pets had some accidents but that it was nothing major. He declined having me perform a pet treatment. 

From my experience renters rarely invest in additional services. They simply wanted to clean the carpets at the lowest price point to an acceptable level so they can receive their damage deposit back. 

I arrived to one of Coquitlam's newest  luxury condos about an hour after the customer and I  first spoke. I knew that his unit was going to be nice since it was a large unit. Not many of the newer apartments buildings have 3 bedrooms. 

The customer met me in the underground and brought me up to his unit. As soon as he opened the door it hit me: urine. Not a faint smell but a strong deep pungent smell. I walked in and was shocked! From our brief conversation on the phone I could have never expected what awaited me.

Above is a small sample of what the apartment looked like in and every room. Urine and dog poop  dotted the landscape from wall to wall. He saw the look in my eyes after we were done doing the initial walk through. I told him that I could clean his carpets but I could not guarantee  that I would remove the stains or the smell and that the price would be significantly higher. He had been in the apartment for two years and his dogs (yes plural he had 3 of them and one just gave birth to 5 puppies). He once again declined additional services and asked me to do my best. Within minutes of me arriving I witnessed the dog urinate twice on the carpet. 

If he had agreed to additional services we would have given him different options. We could do a subsurface extraction on each and every spot or we could pull the carpet and replace the padding underneath  and clean and seal the subfloor and then clean the carpets. 

You can't always get what you want and I had to treat this carpet like a regular carpet because the customer would not pay to have it cleaned the right way.  I explained to the customer on numerous occasions that a regular carpet cleaning was going to do very little to remedy his situation. 

First I vacuumed then  pre-sprayed the unit with an acid to neutralize the alkaline urine salts. I let the acid dwell for about twenty minutes. I then pre-sprayed with an enzyme based pre-spray (bio break) mixed with a USR (urine stain remover product). Again I let this dwell for about fifteen minutes. I then extracted with an acid rinse. The end result was as expected: the majority of stains remained and some where removed.

I asked the customer where he was moving too and what type of accommodations (house townhouse or condo) he was moving to and more importantly what type of flooring was in his new place. He gave me a  nervous look and said he was moving to another all carpeted condo. I gave him my opinion that he more than likely was not going to get his damage deposit back. As well,  he should consider himself lucky if the condo owners don't sue him in small claims court because his dogs have done thousands of dollars worth of damage to this unit. 

When I was packing up my gear (portable carpet cleaning machine) the customer asked me how much it costs and where he could get one. I don't usually do this but I suggested that he invest in a small portable spotter cleaning machine. In the carpet cleaning industry us technicians use it for small spots or stains or callbacks. Normally I would never recommend a customer purchase a tool meant for professional  carpet cleaners. However, in this instance I thought it was the appropriate since it may reduce the harm to both himself (it can't be healthy living in that environment) and his future landlord (the thousands of dollars in damage done by the dogs have to be paid for by somebody). 

Ed Scott

Today was an interesting day. I had a local real-estate agent ask me if I could clean the carpet of a 2100 sqft townhouse in Port Moody. She explained to me that the house was going to be put on the market by weeks end the carpets were in desperate need of a  steam cleaning cleaning. I had another real estate agent use the analogy of selling a car to illustrate  the point that home should be in tip top shape prior to being put on the market. The logic is that a person would be less willing to pay top dollar for a used car if it was dirty.  This makes sense.  The asking price for the 3 level 4 bedroom townhouse is over $800,000.

The total amounts of areas that needed carpet cleaning in this Port Moody townhouse was 11.  One of the worst areas in the house was the carpeted dinning room. Why builders continue install carpets in adinning area is beyond me.  

As you can see by the pictures,  this carpet did need a professional carpet cleaning. The worst areas were directly in front of the kitchen. Because of this I decided to use a enzyme based pre-spray. Enzyme pre-sprays are excellent for food based stains, oils and greases. I also added a oxygen booster to my pre-spray because of the white carpets. An oxygen booster really makes the white in the carpet pop. 

I pre-treated some of the other spots and stains with Avenge Legendary Spotter. After I had pre-vacuumed, I pre-sprayed the entire area. I let the solution dwell for around 15 minutes. I then used my Rotovac 360i to extract with an acid rinse. As you can see, once I started cleaning my Rotovac  360i cut through the dirt and grime like a hot knife through butter!

My operating temperatures during this process was at 220 degrees and the PSI was set at 400. As is always the case,  I was sure to do many dry passes with my Rotovac 360i to ensure that the carpets would be dry within a couple hours. 

The carpets turned out great and the listing agent was happy. As an added bonus the neighbour booked me to clean her townhouse the following day. 

Ed Scott

I have decided to change the style of my blog to a "week in review style." Each and every week I will summarize my work week. I will show you some of jobs I encountered and how I cleaned them. 

I will also tell you under what circumstances I obtained the work. I hope you all like this style and find tie bits of information that may help you choose the right carpet cleaner in Vancouver and Surrey.

It was 2:30 in the afternoon and I had just finnished my last job of the day (3 in total) when I received the call. I was just heading back from cleaning carpet in Port Moody. The female customer had just been released from the hospital and needed her carpets cleaned ASAP.  The carpet cleaning job was in Vancouver. The customer  had three dogs (2 large and one small) that had free reign of the house while she was in the hospital. Her neighbours had been feeding them and giving them water in her absence and taking them outside for bathroom breaks. 

Unfortunately, the dogs had some accidents. The Neighbours had closed all of the bedroom doors but the dogs had urinated on the tile floor  directly in front of the master bedroom. The urine seeped under the door and saturated the carpet. 

I arrived at 3:30 that afternoon. First I vacuumed the bedrooms. I immediately saturated the pet stain with a Odour Stain Remover  (OSR) product. I saturated the area fully to ensure the OSR would seep into the padding underneath the carpet.  Pet stains are like icebergs insofar as what you can see on the surface is a fraction what lies beneath. For effective pet stain treatment, it is imperative to treat the carpet padding.

I then pre sprayed the rest of the area with a high ph cleaning solution and 220 degree water. The next step was to use a carpet cleaning rake to agate the cleaning solution into the carpet.  After about fifteen minutes I began the hot water extraction process with our Roto-Vac 360i extractor and a acid rinse with a deodorizer (low ph cleaning solution to bring the carpets ph level back to neutrality)

After the carpets were cleaned (including the pet stain) I used a water claw to perform the subsurface extraction on the pet stain. The water claw was placed directly over top of the pet stain and extracted the OSR solution from the pad. I flushed the area with hot water until I could visually see that no more yellow liquid was being extracted from the water claw. For the final step I injected a low ph acid into the carpet pad and subfloor to neutralize any remaining contaminates. 

The job turned out well and the customer was happy with the clean carpets and the pet stain removal performed by Pacific Mist Carpet Cleaning. 

Ed Scott

Finding the right carpet cleaner in Surrey can be challenging. This is because the carpet cleaning industry has unethical carpet cleaners who employ bait and switch tactics or high pressured sales tactics. These carpet cleaners often do shoddy work or refuse to honour advertised prices.

Here are some tips for you the consumer to help prevent you from being the victim of unscrupulous carpet cleaners.

First, if a deal sounds to good to be true then it probably is. Legitimate businesses have expenses: vehicle insurance, liability insurance, business licenses, taxes, employee wages, equipment maintenance, chemicals, WCB coverage, gas and of course quality equipment expenditures. Carpet cleaners could never clean your carpet for $10.95 a room and do a quality job.

Second, while price is a factor in choosing a carpet cleaner never should it be the paramount factor. Instead, quality of work should be the primary concern of consumers. Like other businesses, quality work comes at a cost.

Third, clear terms of what is too be expected and what will be included in any work performed should be clearly expressed to the consumer prior to the commencement of any work. Failure to do so creates headaches and may lead to unfulfilled consumer expectations.

Fourth, the carpet cleaner you choose should be knowledgeable and should be able to answer simple questions regarding the work they are about to perform or have performed already.

Fifth, check the Lower Mainland BBB to see if the business is accredited. To be accredited by the BBB a business must pass a stringent vetting process. Never hesitate to ask a carpet cleaner for references or pictures of past work.

And finally, if a carpet cleaner is too pushy walk away and file a complaint with the BBB. While it is part of a technicians job to sell additional products and services, never should they pressure a consumer into a transaction that they do not want to be in.

I hope the above mentioned tips help you make an informed decision of what carpet cleaner to choose when you have your carpets cleaned by a professional.

Ed Scott   

Carpet cleaners in Vancouver charge different prices from one another. Some prices are high and some are extremely low. In a free market economy price differences can be expected. However, the enormous price difference between carpet cleaning companies can be confusing for customers. One factor in the variance in prices can be attributed  carpet cleaning companies having different business models. 

I will briefly discuss the franchise model and the contractor model. Both models of carpet cleaning involve a third party which inflates the cost customers pay to have their carpets cleaned. Just because these companies charge more does not mean that they are providing more services or better service. 

Some carpet cleaning companies are franchises. The franchisee, a person who performs the work but does not own the company, must pay franchise fee's to the franchisor. The franchisor owns the company and licenses others to perform the work under a branded trade name. 

The franchisor takes care of advertising and finding new customers. More often then not, the franchisee must pay a large sum to the franchisor upfront to purchase a guaranteed monthly income. The higher the monthly income the higher the fee. 

The franchisee must also purchase the equipment from the franchisor at a marked up price. But it does not end there. The franchisor also takes a cut of what ever is earned by the franchisee (sometimes up to 50%) and almost always has control over pricing. The franchisee simply performs the work. 

Ultimately it is the customer who pays an inflated price so that both the franchisee and franchisor can turn a profit.

Another type of carpet cleaning company is the general contractor. This type of company subs out all work to other carpet cleaning companies. Usually, this type of company specializes in some other service related to home maintenance and offers carpet cleaning as an additional service. The contractor has no carpet cleaning equipment nor do they have employees qualified to perform the work.

Instead, the contractor hires another company to perform the work at a set rate and charges the customer more. Should anything ever go wrong with carpet cleaning, the customer contacts the contractor who then calls the carpet cleaning company. Because more people are involved it may take longer to resolve issues.

Another negative is that customers expectations may not be met. If a customer pays X amount of dollars they may expect a certain level of services. The level of services a customer may receive may be dependent on the size of the mark up between the carpet cleaner and the contractor.

Both the franchise model and the contractor model contribute to enormous price difference customers are charged between carpet cleaning companies. Remember, just because these companies charge more does not mean that they are providing more services or better service. Instead, more often than not the customer is paying inflated price so the “middle man” and the carpet cleaner can turn a profit.

By Ed Scott

Stains, Odours and Decontamination: Professional Carpet Cleaning and Your Pets.

When you were looking for a house to purchase or rent ,having a large outdoor space was  mandatory. You needed a space for your pets to exercise and to do their business. Surrey seemed like a logical choice because of the large lot sizes and affordability. Unfortunately, accidents happen and your pets don't always go outside to do their business. Having a Carpet Cleaner in Surrey clean your carpets seemed like a great idea: you could kill two birds with one stone in so far as you could have your carpets cleaned and remove your pets stains and odours at the same time.

Unfortunately, pet stains are some of the most difficult stains to treat and regular carpet cleaning is not an effective way to treat urine stains and pet odours. But before we delve into how to treat pet urine and odours we first have understand the properties of pet odours and stains.


Urine exits the body in a slightly acidic state (pH between 5-6) and comprised mainly of uric acid. Once urine exist the body it almost immediately begins to grow bacteria and transforms from an acidic state into a high alkaline state. High alkalinity will damage carpet fibres and may remove the dyes from your carpet which can cause permanent damage. This cannot be corrected by carpet cleaning. Over time this alkaline mixture transforms into tiny alkaline salts which emit odour.

A regular steam clean will actually compound the your odour problem since moister created by a steam clean will promote a chemical reaction that will re-activate the alkaline salts emission process. This reaction is what causes odours.

To effectively treat pet stains we use a 4 step process:

• First we apply an topological acid to the carpet. This neutralize the alkalinity of the urine salts and brings it back into an acceptable range.
  
  
• Second, we inject an acid into the backing of the carpet and the pad. We let this dwell for 10-15 minutes. Again this is to neutralize any alkaline salts that may have penetrated the backing or pad.
  
  
• Third, we flood the contaminated area with a special cleaning agent that is specifically designed to treat pet stains and counter act odour. We pour enough of the product down to fully saturate the carpet and the pad underneath.
  
  
• Forth, we perform a sub-surface extraction with a specialized tool called a water claw. The water claw extracts the cleaning agent that we flooded the contaminated area with. We repeat step 3 and 4 numerous times to flush the carpet.
  
  

As you can see, a simple steam cleaning is not an effective way to treat pet stains and counteract odour. Instead, a let a professional carpet cleaner tackle your pet stain problem. For more information on pet stain treatment click here.

By Ed Scott