Urine Stain Charges

I was told by a customer this week that she normally used a competitor of mine. A very nice guy with lots of experience, but one of us are doing things wrong.

This cleaner charged $15 for every "urine" stain that he spots under UV light that he finds. Call me crazy, but we all know that not everything that lights up is urine. It could be any cleaning agent with optical brighteners, paper, athlete's foot creme, automotive body putty, etc. It could also just be the remnants of urine stains that have already been cleaned up previously....they still shine, just a little differently in hue as you know.

On an average house with pets, that would add up incredibly fast. She told me that it was embarrassing walking along with him while he shined the light and marked it down on his pad. As a result, she told me that she just wanted a couple of rooms addressed regarding urine deposits as it would cost too much otherwise.

The kicker is that he didn't really do anything with the stains. He pre-treated and that was it....hardly worthy of a $15 charge in my view. I can see if you had to go the OSR and bunny hop method, but hitting it with a little UPT+ isn't worthy of such of price.

When this customer asked me if that was normal practice, I had to be careful not to throw the guy under the bus, but it doesn't seem normal at all to me. Or at least it shouldn't be in my view. So, now I am curious how everyone else charges for urine contamination?

For me, in most cases I can pre-treat with UPT+ and then spike my pre-spray with OSR with great results. It is very rare that I have to bunny hop these days at all.

I don't know if I am being the fool or if my competition is just being greedy these days. With each job, I keep hearing things that amaze me regarding how others are operating, but maybe I am the one in the wrong?

Well Bob, you're in the wrong sir ! You should've charged her $ 25 / stain, lol.
Yeah I don't know how some people sleep at night with overcharging customers like that, but in the long run, that kind of attitude will surely bite them in the behind.
What goes around comes around.

"Well Mrs. I charge abit different. Based on a rooms needs" is what I'd say.
PS: I did a rental that cat urine odor in just the living room downstairs. Heavy treated with judons quat. Immediate knocked down odor. A lot of long slow clean strokes.

Then a Can of odor fogger before I left.

You scared me at first Dp, it wouldn't be the first thing that I did wrong in this business. It bit him on the rump this time around as he lost several customers over it.

@milspec6, I think you did the right thing.

15$ for every urine stain ?? That's close to a scam category IMHO...

I feel the same way Joe, yet I would also wager than many cleaners have read this post and do exactly that if not worse.

An industry without a licensed standard is also open to vampires with a slick sales pitch.

Your time is money. It's only as valuable as you make it.

A couple spots and clawing it out, not a lot of time, but the stuff to do it with is "specialty tools" with a special price to boot. Same for the cleaning agents.

Not defending piss poor business practices, but I don't hate on anyone for getting what they are worth either.

Getting what they are worth, or what they can get? There is a difference in my view and just because you might be able to overcharge someone doesn't make it an ethical practice.

It is an interesting deal being self-employed as you only "eat what you can kill", but there should always be a level of professional ethics behind the logo in my view.

The question always becomes "what is the fair price"? Is the fair price simply what-ever the customer agrees to or is it more than that? Is there an ethical responsibility of the owner to charge a realistic price as he/she knows the real value involved?

Just an interesting thought.....don't think is a right/wrong answer.