This post is about pet stains and odors on a plush-type carpet in Jackson Hole, WY.  I received a phone call from who is now one of my favorite clients, stating that she was not sure if the carpet in her home was salvageable.  She designed the home years ago, lived in it, then rented it out, now is moving back in and doing some renovating.  Walking into this house for the first time, I noticed that there had been some pet odor damage.  It was not the worst I have experienced, but it was definitely in the replacement stage.  I walked into this room pictured above, and these next shots are what I saw...

Due to the age of the carpet, and after calculating the total cost to completely restore this carpet, I informed the client that it would be best to just replace it, however I would clean it for $x.xx amount of dollars.  The potential problems with this carpet are like most pet damage carpet cleaning jobs. 
1)The pad should be replaced.
2)The subfloor(if made of wood) should be sealed with our special floor/odor barrier sealer.
3)If the items from 1 & 2 are not done, the pet stains will almost always re-soil.
Re-soiling is when the carpet backing/carpet pad is still wet after the carpet fibers have dried, and since wet wants to always find dry, the fibers will wick-back the stains out of the backing.  A few posts ago, I showed how the carpet cleaning process goes for severe pet damage.  That process includes completely saturating the carpet fibers and backing to make sure that the stains and odor sources are removed.  If it is not done in this way, I can bet you a prime rib dinner that it will re-soil.  This client wanted a dollars and cents job done with the understanding that this re-soiling could happen.  She said that if it re-soiled, that she would just dye the whole room!  So I cleaned it, with all of this in mind and we deodorized it really well.  I texted her a few days after to ask how it looked, and she said that sure enough, the stains had re-soiled, but the house smelled fresh and there was no trace of the pet odors like before.  I asked her if she wanted to dye it still, and she said that she wanted to.  I then told her about my new very low moisture carpet cleaning process, and that I wanted to try it out on her room to see if it would work, and that I would do it at my expense.  The very low moisture carpet cleaning process offered by Restore Your Carpet, does not use enough water/steam to cause a re-soiling problem, and since the odor problem was already taken care of, what did we have to lose?  I did not take a picture of the re-soiled condition, but it did not look much better than the before shots in this post.  I felt bad actually when I saw it, because although I had told her that it would re-soil, I felt that due to the cost of the initial cleaning, the results should have been better.  I like to think that the client needs all of the available information going into a job so that they can make an informed decision.  This job was no different, this was not a normal carpet cleaning job, so we charged more for the extra processes and chemicals that we used.  I guess the bottom line is, she made the decision.  Anyways, the carpet turned out great.  The next picture is what it looked like when I left the second time, only this time it was totally dry and what you see below is the finished product.

It really turned out great!  It shines, its soft, smells great, and no stains.  The very low moisture carpet cleaning process that Restore Your Carpet offers is really impressive.  These types of situations are why I love my job.  I walk into a mess, and leave with a very happy client, and a new friend. 

If you or anyone else you know is in need of our pet damage carpet cleaning/restoration services, give us a call, we can Restore Your Carpet.

RYC, out.

307.774.0223
In Jackson Hole, WY areas.

307.887.0223
In Star Valley, WY areas.

This post is about another rental unit carpet job.  I received a phone call from a new client in Wilson, WY and the lady on the other end of the line had the sweetest voice.  She asked what our pricing was and we don't like to give a flat price because every job is different.  I like to see it, give a good recommendations and let the client decide what they want to do.  This client had a massage therapy business that she ran out of her condo.  You can see where the massage table was in this before shot.  The black area is massage oil, and dirt and who knows how much time that had been ground into this berber carpet.  I took one look at it and almost said no thanks, but I wanted to give it a shot to put it on my blog, so here is the rest of the story.

You may be wondering why I am posting a picture of a piece of clean looking carpet that is lying on a driveway.  I wanted to shake things up a bit and post the after picture first in order to be well, dramatic.  This carpet has had about 6 months of use on it, and judging from this picture, one would have to agree that it looks like lightly used, yet clean looking carpet.  The story behind this carpet in a nutshell is that this is out of a rental town home in Alpine, Wyoming.  This rental had renters in it for about 6 months and these renters allowed some pets to totally trash the place.  There was cat and dog feces, urine, and vomit.  Not to mention the traffic areas that were ground into the fibers with greasy foot soils to boot!  Now that I have painted the picture of what it looked like, let me describe how it smelled.  When you walked into this town home rental, the smell was so pungent and sour that there was no mistaking that is was cat damage.  There were some doggy deposits too, but somehow cats really take the cake when it comes to pet odors in carpet.  It really took your breath away when you walked through the front door.  It is hard to describe the smell, but it was in the top three of nasty odors for me the first time I went in.

Here is another angle of this piece of pet damaged carpet.  Keep in mind that this carpet has only had about 6 months of use on it.  Now the obvious question is why is it out on the driveway?  This piece is out of the living/dining/hallway area on the main level.  The urine damage was so severe that the carpet padding was saturated and had to be thrown out.  We even took steps to seal the wooden sub-floor with a special pet barrier odor coating that is applied to the floor.  This barrier is the most effective product that I have found for blocking the smell of urine thus saving the additional cost of tearing out the wood.  It works better than KILZ, although that would be better than nothing at all.  I always tell our clients that have pet damage that if we can clean/restore the carpet at less than 65% of the cost of replacing it then it is cost-effective.  After measuring the place and doing the math, the client decided to let us try it.  I told her that if at anytime during this process we felt that it was a lost cause I would only charge her for the cost of the chemical and I would eat the labor.  With that in mind, I wanted to pull out all the stops on this one.  After inspecting the carpet and determining that it was sound structurally(meaning that the carpet material could withstand being put through the gauntlet), I decided that I would not just clean it in place, I washed it like it were a wool rug on a wash floor.  Since the pad and subfloor had to be taken out anyway, this is the method I chose.  Here is what the process basically looked like....

This was just the pics of the Living room carpet.  We performed the same process on the master bedroom carpet.  The rest of the house did not require new pad so we cleaned it in place like normal, but used the same chemical cocktail mentioned earlier.  Removing pet stains and odors from carpets is not a job for any old carpet cleaning company.  We are called Restore Your Carpet for a reason.  As long as there is sound material there to clean and it can make it through the gauntlet that we will put it through, we can Restore Your Carpet.

If you or anyone else you know is in need of our services regarding pet damage stains and odors, give us a call.

RYC, out.

Carpet cleaning/restoration services in Jackson Hole, WY
307.774.0223

Carpet cleaning/restoration services in Star Valley, WY
307.887.0223