Why do spots and stains come back? First of all, we are not a franchise operation that promotes fear marketing to sell and we’ve been doing this for over 25 years as a small operation. Keeping it small for quality and consistantcy is key rather than sending out multiple trucks with multiple employees forced to up sell for 30% commissions and bang out 5 jobs per day. B.S. selling is not in our DNA.

Here is a rather stupid excuse from that franchise company zeroshmez: Reappearing spots are often the result of wicking action from the back of the carpet to the tips of the carpet fiber as the carpet dries. We eliminate this and de-lamination (caused by conventional hot water extraction cleaning methods) because we do not penetrate the primary backing.

This franchise has tried to make claims that set them apart from “conventional & traditional” carpet cleaners. I put them in the category of just another Fear Marketing franchise doing all the same things that typical franchise operations do by just relabeling what they do to make it sound different.

First of all, the concept of a no residue process &  products that don’t leave a residue have been around since carpet cleaning started. The big truck & Franchise operations that must cut corners are responsible for much of the problems and answering the question: why do spots & stains come back?

Big truck operations and the franchises operate on speed – time is money. Cutting corners must happen and a smart deceptive company can relabeled those cut corners into a selling point: Special water with power. This is called CHEMICAL INJECTION, this traditional and conventional. Strengthening the water with a soap, non soap chemical cuts down the pre-condition and spot treat step, just start cleaning with adulterated chemicalized water and rub out surface spots this way. Of course you leave all that residue behind but you can get around that in advertising like they do. This is why spots & stains come back after carpet cleaning.

Traditional truckmounted steam cleaning is the best method by far to clean the carpet fibers. In the hands of a professional it is done correctly and wisely. In the hands of a franchise or big truck operation on a high stressed packed schedule, I guarantee you’re in for it. We call it Splash & Dash.

Moisture control is the name of the game. At no time will the carpet backing, either the primary or secondary get wet unless you try hard and Splash & Dash. To avoid this if you are someone who sends out employees that are constantly being changed out like a franchise, you skip the required steps and combine that with the cleaning. Instead of pre conditioning & spot/stain treat, just send all that through your water. We will use only 100% water, no alkaline converted water into sodium hydroxide/lye & no soaps or any chemicals.

Spots come back very simply because the cleaner didn’t know the carpet fiber type and address each spot with a spotter designed for that spot. Instead what they did was remove the soil that stuck to that greasy spot. The dirt is gone but the grease or oil us still there to attract more soil again.

The stains that reappear are usually just big spots that are actually spills. Certain carpet fibers are non absorbant and any liquid of any amount runs down each fiber into the backing and if big enough it will also run into the pad. Coffee, drink, juicy food spills and pet urine is going to find it’s way back to the carpet fiber to haunt you.

When cleaning carpet fibers correctly, they must be flushed & rinsed out if all contamination. We use more water than most carpet cleaners and still do not have a problem not getting into the carpet backing. Franchise & big truck operations in a hurry or not really knowing what they are doing usually do that really quick squirt & suck. No time is spent slowly injecting the water into the carpet and slowly extracting it all. They think the wand is magical and somehow made it all go away. Problem is the shot water into the carpet quickly and too quickly ran over it to fully extract it. Slow flush & rinse passes along with slow and more than 1 extraction pass are required but it is NOT AFFORDABLE with big operations.

Those spills and pet stains, what do you do? Clean as normal or do a repair. The repair can be a subsurface treat and clean – cleaning & rinsing the contaminates from the backing & pad or pulling the carpet back to cut out the effected area of pad & replace, then treat the backing. Yes, that is extra and optional and the process is dictated by the sub-floor. When we take those on, we own them, in other words: if the stain/spill comes back then so do we at no charge.

We go the extra mile as most do not, and that is that our cleaning wands are patented designed to not be the traditional wands everyone else uses. Traditional wands blast water straight down deep into the carpet backing where the soil & dirty water gets trapped. We also use fans strategically placed to follow our cleaning. This is essential to snuff out any possible wicking problem.

Most important is the pre-inspection that most do not do. This is where we identify carpet fiber type, carpet backing type, correct carpet install, possible carpet defects, presence of pet urine and color loss. This is absolutely essential before cleaning. Many carpet cleaners have had to pay for carpet restretching simply because they didnt identify a loose carpet that buckled & waved after a cleaning.

When a customer points out a problem, we need to inspect why it is:

We can’t tell you that the cleaning alone will solve your problem until we inspect it. The picture above you can see that not only is the backing heavily contaminated but so is the pad. The idiotic idea the franchise tried to explain why spots come back is because traditional carpet cleaners get the backing wet is rubbish. This is all coming back up and always will until removed from the backing and the pad. The question is, is your carpet cleaner smart & motivated enough to locate and solve your problem?

Real world situation is a polyester carpet with over 100 small greasy spots throughout the home. I qualify these as Salvage cleaning and Salvage cleaning has no guarantee. You see, polyester not only wears dramatically quick but anything that is oily or has petroleum in it will stain it. It does not give up the oil. Spot treating helps but the majority of them lightly stay behind. You will find them again, trust me. This is why you should never buy a polyester carpet. Check out this oily traffic lane on a new polyester carpet that was scrubbed down with a  bush machine the cleaned with a rotary extractor with a brush head and then sanded it:

The results are dramatic but the wear is still there and shouldn’t be on a 1 year old carpet. The client used foot lotion often and walked around the bed. Take a look at the next which is a polyester that transitioned into a kitchen:

You may think that is night & day but the fact is that there are permanent grease spot stains. This is the problem with polyester. I would bet that some spots reappeared a few weeks later even though we spent over an hour just on this transition to get these results.

So, why do spots & stains come back? Many come back for various reasons. Solving the issue is the issue and depends on what you dripped, spilled, and the carpet fiber type. This is why we ask what certain spots/spills are and also why we test for urine.

Again regarding the comments made by that zeroshmez franchise – Reappearing spots are often the result of wicking action from the back of the carpet to the tips of the carpet fiber as the carpet dries. We eliminate this and de-lamination (caused by conventional hot water extraction cleaning methods) because we do not penetrate the primary backing.  This franchise uses covential truck mounted cleaning. They make excuses for wicking by not getting into the backing which most carpet cleaners never do but they won’t even approach the problem to fix it, just bypass it. It takes a lot delaminate a carpet, even water damage from a flood will unlikely cause it. These guys should be more attentive to getting into the contaminated backing & pad to help solve your problem.

Next time, discuss all these issues with your carpet cleaner. We recommend that you bypass the big truck operations where Splash & Dash employees are only motivated on 30% commission sales and banging out those 4 or 5 jobs assigned to them that day. The Franchise companies dedication is to selling more franchises and spinning their process. If you have questions re: why do spots & stains come back or are interested in true green carpet cleaning, you can give me a call. Check out our current prices & specials by clicking on SPECIALS