G'day Lavinia,I live in Adelaide and i just started carpet cleaning last november.
Yes there are alot of Chem dry's here,the first 5 pages of Y/P with big colour ads plus all the other franchises, some cleaning 3 rooms for $59.00.Before i started i went on the road with a couple of C/D franchisees, was not impressed,their system is well lets say crap.Spay on some water,chuck on a dirty old bonnet, rub the dirt into the customers carpet,spray on scotchgaurd and charge $250.00 for 3 rooms that now look worst than they did before they got there,i could'nt believe my eyes.
Should add the bonnetts or pads are dity because each operator only carries 5,and after each job they only rinsed by hand in a dirty old bucket of cold water so by the time they get to their last job they are "cleaning" it with other peoples dirt, this a fact,been there seen it.So they have to have big ads to attract more clients,because i dought they get many refferals.This particular franchisee had 5 vans on the road and the office recieved 70 calls a day in summer and 40 in winter.
So i decided to go it alone.there is a lot small Co's here too and there is only 1million people live here in S.A which is about the size of U.K maybe bigger.still plenty of work for everyone though so come on down.