[The Carpet Cleaning Pro]

Went to clean a living room carpet that was heavily soiled. In my opinion it had been DIY cleaned causing the odour it had.

Anyway to cut a long story short.....Pre vacuumed... presprayed with Shockwave. Extracted with truckmount them light mist with Prochem Odour Fresh. (This has always worked for me before with others who have DIY cleaned)

Customer rang to complain saying the odour is now much worse.

So I went out again and re cleaned using Prochem Odour fresh as an additive in extraction rinse. Left blower with customer to dry.

Customer now stating that it smells even worse than before.

I'm thinking of going back and spraying down Prochem Clensan then re extracting to hopefully solve the issue.

Personally I think the customer is after a new carpet out of me.

[Mike Halliday]

Odour uses moisture as a carrier adding more moisture makes it worse, it needs to completely dry before you can accesss how bad it smells,

Tell her to wait a week,  she won’t like it but until it completely dries you can be nothing ( not just feel dry on the surface)

[john martin]

I would say lift a corner and see if the underlay or backing is damp , if so float the carpet with the dryer beneath the corner .
It could take a couple of days to dry right . If it's just an odor in the customers head you might be in a situation you can't win , then sometimes they don't want the noise and disruption big dryers left on for long periods etc ..   the only time I replaced a carpet was in a situation like that , I could have dryed it eventually but I was almost glad to resolve it the quick way to stop her calling me and the time wasted involved , plus the risk of a bad review ..going luck

[The Carpet Cleaning Pro]

Great input guys. All of which i had thought myself. This customer is a nightmare, and think they just after a new carpet. I genuinely think they knew what they were going to do which ever company they used. I have left a blower with them and told them to keep it going to dry the carpet. I have offered to go back on Sunday to see what the situation is once dried.

[derikraven]

Does the customer agree that the carpet was smeling before you arrived? If yes then I can't see that they have any comeback in you not being able to cure the problem. Leave the carpet to dry thoroughly THEN if there is still a problem ASK the customer if they want you to try again to solve the problem. Make sure they understand that you are giving no guarantees because you don't know what caused the problem ( because it was there when you arrived). You can only treat problems if you know the cause. I would agree that the problem is probably caused by previous overwetting of the carpet.

[Steve_Knight]

Hi Mick
Long time no speak.
As said above let the carpet dry out fully even if it takes a week.Sounds to me that she is after a new carpet but stand your ground Pal!!
When you return don't clean it again just spray over it with Chemspec 429 and that should sort the problem out.

[jasonl]

I would pull the carpet right back, whatever it takes.
There will be a low spot in the floor with a puddle or excessve visible moisture on it.  The cause will be a diy machine not recovering enough water. 

Sanitize/ dry/ refit carpet.

[John Kelly]

You have made the problem worse by adding more water to the mix. Odour Clear and Clensan will not deal with this issue. It is usually a Mould or Mildew which is causing the problem. You need to be using a Microbiocide which is actually a Fungicide not just anti Bacterial. Formula 429 or 429 plus is the best on the market.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Or use a host machine and dry sponges

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

From memory you can buy “moisture sticks” or was is a probe? I got mine from Drieaz.

Anyway, what it allowed you to do was push the sharp probe through the carpet and into the underlay. If there was moisture it would make a noise. With one of these it is relatively easy to test large areas of the room without having to resort to lifting the carpet in the first place.

If you did find a fundamental problem then you could lift the carpet. And the beauty of discovering a problem and revealing it is that the issue becomes self evident to the owner that you are not the cause of the original problem.

Apart from the above I concur with everybody else.