[thepez17]

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to shout a big hello. I recently started up my own carpetcleaning company in the Essex area and doing quite well.

I seem to get the student houses to clean... messy but good money!

I got a ninja extrator, and get my supplies from prochem and so far never had any problems.

Except once, when i did a four bed town house. In particular, the lounge carpet was quite stained, and using a bit of pre spray and slight brushing technique, then applying the extractor, the stains appeared to come out. The next day i checked the property as it was vacant and the stains were nowhere to be seen. great i thought. then a day later the new tenant moved in and i get a call from the agency..." rob, the tenant is saying that the lounge carpet hasnt been cleaned"

with that, i went straight round there with my fists clenched, ready to have a row, and to my surprise the stains had come back. my first thought is that the tenant had caused them (having a moving in party or something) but they were the same stains in the same places. it appeared to be wine at first but im not so sure?

has this ever happened to anyone else?

[John Kelly]

This called wick back. Basically something has been spilt onto the carpet, beer, tea, coffee you name it. The stain you see on the surface only represents a fraction of the material which was spilt. The rest is sitting in the bottom of the pile, in the backing and even in the underlay. When you come to clean it you remove a fair percentage but the remainder will wick back up to the face as the carpet dries.
What to do? Going over the stains with a hand tool will help to remove more residue. Make plenty drying passes. Rinse with fibre & fabric rinse helps as does drying with an airmover. Always qualify with client that any bad staining could wick back but you will return to rectify it. That way they don't think you were a crap cleaner.
Hope this helps.

[thepez17]

thankyou for your advice, very helpful. i went back a couple of times and did pretty much what you said, but i used my multi clean pre spray, part diluted with a hard brush to get it right in the pile. left to dry, it did help, but a slight staining still remained.

after that experience, i always tell my clients that i can remove between 80-95% of a stain. that way, it gives me 5% to fall back on, just in case i cant. honestly, though, people expect, NO MATTER WHAT, that by getting a professional carpet cleaner in, will mean that there carpets appear to be 'just off the roll'

we can only do our best! :-)

[HQCS (John Kastrian)]

Rob,you will get much better results with Prochem Pre-spray gold-John

[Michel Roberts]

As John Kelly has Said this sounds like 'wick back' this is most likely to occur on polyprop carpets.

With the increasing amounts of this face fibre going into the UK market it is likly to become a more commen problem

Don't overwet the stain with your solution, in this case more is not better it's worse

Try towelling it off before you extract

Force dry it

Regards Michel