“This carpet is beyond our cleaning ability.” It is not the kind of sentence you ever want to use as a professional carpet-care technician. It also is not a thing many customers are used to hearing. But when the truth hits you right in the face, you better own it – or face an unpleasant conversation with an angry client.
My last nasty encounter with a hopeless carpet came a few months back when I got a quote for a post-tenancy procedure, especially for the floors. The red light went off immediately because most contractors offer the whole package and tenants usually book the same team for all sanitary tasks. When someone calls for a single item or room, it usually means one of two things – someone didn’t do their job or declined to do the job because it was impossible. Lesson learned.
When I arrived at the spot, my worst expectations began turning into reality – the place looked in decent sanitary condition, which meant the end of tenancy cleaning had already been done. The carpet in question turned to be in the playroom – or so the couple of college guys who had lived there described it to me. It was in despicable condition – you could hardly tell its original colour, it must have been white or light grey. What I saw, however, was every shade of black and brown, except for the occasional spot of red, which I discerned as ketchup stains. It was terribly worn and had visible signs of mould close to the corners of the room.
It did not take a professional cleaner to recognise that the thing was beyond despair. The guys, however, pleaded frantically with me and told me they would lose their tenancy deposit, which turned out to be quite substantial. Against my better judgement, I took the job. Maybe it was compassion or the ultimate professional challenge – can I revive this carpet against all the odds, to turn this into the masterpiece of my cleaning career?
After the mandatory hot water extraction and stain removal, all the pampering and deep-fabrics treatment that was at my disposal, I did manage to bring the dirt and most of the stains out of it. But it somehow made it look it even worse – the grime had somehow kept the upper layer of the fabrics together, and now it looked dishevelled and barely staying in place. I was afraid that if I repeated the procedure, I would damage it for good – not that it was in decent condition anyway. Probably three hours after I started, I had to admit to myself there was nothing else I could do.
The reaction of my customers was interesting to observe when I showed them the results. At first, they were shocked at how changed the whole room looked, with the floor significantly lighter. At the same time, they recognised the carpet was in terrible condition. I knew what was coming – they refused to pay for something that was pointless from the start. To be honest, I had braced myself for such a course of events – I was the one who had taken an impossible job. I just gathered my equipment without arguing and left them stunned, knowing full well that the carpet will cost them their deposit. Bad karma always bites you in… you know where.
What were the lessons of the story for me? First, you should always follow your intuition. I should have declined the job during the first phone call when I heard it was a single carpet. While this was a rookie mistake that an experienced cleaner should never make, trying to do anything for a lost cause was outright stupid. I wasted more than three hours for nothing and did not get paid for the effort. The worst thing about it – I could blame no one but myself. The college guys were so out of touch with the mere concept of sanitary maintenance, and so panic-stricken they would lose their deposit that I should have paid no attention to their arguments.
Final thoughts: do not let pride or any other emotion for that matter to overstep your professional judgement and experience. You have to recognise that despite all the training, skills, and modern equipment you have at your disposal, you cannot save all carpets from continuous neglect.