Most Common Complaints After Professional Carpet Cleaning
The most common complaint all professional carpet cleaners receive is that carpet doesn’t look clean after the service. Giving our customers the most value is our goal at EverClean Nashville, and that includes setting realistic expectations. While we thrive on delivering great results, there are limitations all carpet cleaners face when cleaning a continually walked-on and worn surface.
Carpet Cleaning is a Mystery
Cleaning carpet is mystery to many people, and rightly fully so. There are several aspects that should be considered before allowing anyone to clean such a large, absorbent surface in your home. Factors such as fiber material, construction and soil load greatly contribute to overall satisfaction.
Unfortunately, many people believe that having their carpet professionally cleaned will result in a new appearance. While at times this is accurate, it is unfortunately not the case for everyone. It’s natural for fibers to wear in common walkways, but there are a few important factors that will determine how your carpet looks after the cleaning.
The Most Common Carpet Soil
Most people believe that actual, physical soil is what makes carpet dirty. While it’s an accurate assumption, you might be surprised that soil may not be the reason your carpet looks dirty.
The most prevalent soil in carpet is actually oil! Airborne cooking oils, pet dander and human sebum is the glue that allows dry, sharp soil particulates to stick to the fibers. Soap residue and high pH cleaners from previous cleanings also contribute to rapid re-soiling.
The Most Common Carpet Complaint
Under a microscope, you’ll see that soil has sharp edges that cut and scratch your carpet fibers over time. A good example of light refraction is if you were to wash your shiny car with sandpaper. The car will be clean, but now it appears dirty because of the scratches. The scratched surface leaves tiny grooves in the finish that refract light in a million different directions. This makes car appear dull, gray and dirty.
New or unused carpet fibers allow the light to refract in one, unified direction, hence the new mirror-like appearance. If you look at the carpet nearest your walls, you’ll notice it appears newer because the fibers have not been walked on or worn. Abrading or graying is the most common complaint after carpet has been professionally cleaned.
The two pictures show carpet we recently cleaned. The picture on the left is carpet the thoroughly cleaned, but the customer was unhappy with the results. Even though we discussed carpet abrading prior to the service, she believe it was still dirty.
We recleaned the carpet a week later under her supervision. As you can see from our wand marks, we thoroughly cleaned the carpet a second time but the light refracting on worn carpet makes it appear dirty.
Polyester: The Undisputed King of Carpet Complaints
Unlike nylon that maintains its shape and surface structure, polyester has a mirror-like finish that quickly abrades soon after installation. In fact, vacuuming polyester fibers can act as a sanding machine causing it to abrade even faster. The beater-bar allows sharp soils to literally sand the mirror-like finish, which helps create the gray, dirty appearance.
Polyester fibers is good for two things: Repurposing plastic bottles and vibrant colors. If you want hot pink carpet, polyester can give you the vibrancy you desire. This is because the dye is added when polyester is in liquid form. The dye is part of the fiber throughout, so the color does not fade away over time.
Unfortunately, highly recommended polyester carpet because it’s completely stain resistant to organic liquids such as coffee, tea or Kool-Aid. One of the many problems with polyester, however, is that it’s oil-based, and oil loves oil. While you cannot stain polyester with water-based liquids, oils stick to polyester fibers causing another common complaint: Black sole shoe stains.
Permanent black sole shoe stains around a computer chair platform.
Common Polyester Complaints
- Abrading (scratched fibers appear gray and dirty)
- Matting (low form memory)
- Wicking (stains reappear a few days later)
- Black Sole Shoe Stains (ink permeating fibers)
- Amplified “Wet dog” Smell
- Pet/Human Hair, Lint/Dust Static Attraction
- Fiber Loss (common staple fibers)
- Inexpensive, Common Shag Rug Fibers
Carpet Matting
Polyester carpet has a very low memory. Once it mats down, it doesn’t return to its original state.
Carpet Wicking
Because polyester has a mirror-finish, stains at the base and back of the carpet literally climb the smooth surface as the carpet dries. The water within the slurry evaporates leaving the stain residue on the tips of the fiber.
Black Sole Shoe Stains
Many people think that if they do not wear their house slippers outdoors, they’re fine to wear indoors. Shoe manufacturers add carbon to soft foam-rubber soles to make them wear longer. The problem with this is that the ink within the soft foam can permeate polyester or oil-based fibers. Removing shoe sole stains is like washing off a tattoo. It needs to be stripped away with a powerful solvent, and the process can get costly depending on how much is present.
Wet Dog Smell
Being oil-based, polyester fibers not only attract pet dander oils, but amplify the wet dog smell similar to wick sticks.
Pet Hair
Polyester holds a negative charge, which makes pet and human hair stick to it more easily.
Fiber Loss
Not all, but most polyester fibers are stapled fibers. This means each yarn is made from fragmented fibers that pull away from yarn similar to a wool sweater. As the carpet is worn and vacuumed, the carpet loses fiber making it thinner over time. Eventually the carpet backing starts to appear.
Complaint Summary
Traffic lanes are undoubtedly the most common complaint areas after a professional cleaning. While many homeowners want to believe it is simply soil that needs to be removed, it is actually the combination of up to four common factors that appear as soil: Actual Soil, Abrading, Fiber Loss, and Black Sole Shoe Stains.
Nashville carpet cleaning services can remove soils, most stains and even black sole shoe sole stains. However, the only way to eliminate abrading is to replace the carpet. Much like the example of washing your car with sandpaper, we cannot fill those tiny scratches with new material. We hope this information has been helpful regarding carpet cleaning most common complaint.
