Not another Rental nightmare?

My final job for the day was for the church that I had cleaned a few weeks ago.  The church owned the house that was used by the minister, but the minister has chosen to relocate so the house needed cleaning.  

You know my view towards rental properties, but I figured that we were not talking about a couple of college kids or something, so how bad could it be?  I was told that he had a couple of cats so there "might be a stain or two" and that the house was empty and unlocked.

Well, I should not have been surprised, but the inside looked like an animal shelter and stain factory.  The upper floor was frieze carpet (I loath that stuff) and the lower was an emerald green nylon.  The shear amount of stains was impressive, but not in a good way.  I couldn't walk 2 steps without running into a stain in any room.  Odors and HEAVY traffic patterns were also part of the fun and I am allergic to cats.

I hit the place with a chemical blizzard, scrubbed with CRB, and put the Sapphire rotary extractor to it....didn't move a damn thing upstairs.  The stains(despite pre-treat) didn't move at all and some of the traffic patterns only faded.  I was thinking that there was something wrong with my sprayer, but the downstairs looked great and cleaned up nicely (love nylon).

I still have no idea what many of those stains were.  There was every single color you could name and they did not move.  Maybe the guy was into painting as well?  Even then, no solvent even budged them.  I despise jobs like these, you don't get any satisfaction and you knew going in that the carpet really was going to need replacement.  What  waste of money and time.

Just look at this bedroom!



Living room before and after....pathetic results





The only exception was the basement...the mix really made that nylon POP!

The last 2 pics, from blue to green??

Matt; My carpet cleaner wrote:The last 2 pics, from blue to green??

Quite a change isn't it? That is how bad that place was. They covered the floor in so much carpet powder that it turned to a bluish grey.

You should see my filter and waste tank.

The good thing about cleaning two different types of carpet is that the customer won't accuse you of not doing a good job on the carpet that doesnt clean up well

I told myself that same thing when I called the owner. I really don't understand why things were going so badly upstairs. I was about to create a new mix and start over until I hit the basement.

I really don't know what to say about upstairs...never had such a tough time to only end up with lack-luster results.

Mo wrote:The good thing about cleaning two different types of carpet is that the customer won't accuse you of not doing a good job on the carpet that doesnt clean up well

This is so true ! Assuming that they are not the same poly crap, lol.
I usually show the customer the difference between the bedrooms or living room and the stairs ( usually customers tried to clean the carpets themselves, and if they do, they usually don't clean the stairs ) and if that's the case, the stairs usually comes out really clean because there is no residue, that usually end the conversation of why the bedrooms and living room are not really clean.

That might have been the issue Dp, still scratching my head why I couldn't get better results, but I double checked everything...the mix was right, the sprayer was working, the heat was strong, psi right, HOSS was working right, CRB had good brushes, etc.

I haven't heard any more about it, but they did mention that they were thinking about replacing the carpet so my cleaning was just an attempt by them to avoid it. One look at it and they should have skipped my role in it.