Need help on this one

Cleaned a grey synthetic carpet for a lady at the end of last year. A lot of urine spots. Used some hp on the spots. The spots turned orange. sprayed them with them with a strong rust remover that I had, thinking they were indicator dye or something like that. Seemed to disappear. Lady is now complaining about it. Must have come back. I strongly suspect that either she or another cleaner applied something before I treated it. Any ideas? Any body run in to this?

Is the pet still in the house ? I sometimes see spots that when treated with prespray turn colors like maybe they used bleach or something and it's covered up dirt only to appear when the dirt is removed .

I always mention that there can be no guarantees with urine. It acts like both bleach and acid.

What strength of peroxide did you use?

"A lot of urine spots"

Remember that you are only seeing the tip of that iceberg. Below every little spot is a huge spot in the backing and thus will wick up.

You may have to pull the carpet back on that one...could try a peroxide-boosted encap or flushing it with OSR.

The end of last year ?? Wow, seems sketchy to me that she's complaining after almost a whole year ?!?! I would go there ONCE to look at it and see what's she complaining about, sounds like she's trying to squeeze a free cleaning out of you, I can't tolerate that kind of crap from customer.

I have to agree with DP. After a YEAR, she thinks you should come back? No way they just appeared for no reason. She or someone else did something to make them reappear.

Is it possible that the pet in question, remarked it's territory? Is it possible that she rug doc'ed the rooms and it is wicking from her own cleaning?

In any event, I can't believe it was anything to do with the original cleaning.

I always tell customers that there are no guarantee with urine stains reappearing with a normally carpet cleaning.

It probably wicked long ago, but there is a friend or family member now sticking their nose in there saying to complain. You know the type, internet experts who read somewhere that it is the cleaners fault for everything.

If her attitude was good, I would make the effort to stop by and take a look. Then educate her on reality so she can go back and straighten out her know-it-all friend / family. Owning a dog that piddles on the rug is the owner's fault and not the cleaner's. Choose to spot clean or not at that point.

One of your best tools in this business is customer education. The more they are educated on what it really takes to clean textiles, the less likely they will be to complain or allow the carpet to become trashed.

If you do go back, get a picture and let us see how it looks.

?what would Steve Tuburen say? Hmmmm? Go back, see it for yourself, offer to do something within reason- make her a cheerleader.
-maybe she could be a pita OR maybe going the extra mile make her your best referral machine.
You never know.

Matt

milspec6 wrote:One of your best tools in this business is customer education.

Best advice so far on the new forum!

As far as trying to make a cheerleader, some times you have to fire a customer if it's not a good fit. I would not even go back on this one and just tell her that you are not responsible or previous problems or problems that occurred after cleaning. You should have some legal jargon on your invoice to refer her too. On mine I include a statement that says all recurring spots must be reported within two weeks.

Did you rinse out the rust remover? If you didn't rinse it out, it could have caused a problem over time.