What Should I Do Before Carpet Cleaning?
Less than you probably think. The prep that actually changes how your appointment goes happens on the phone when you book, not on your hands and knees the night before. Have an honest room count ready, tell me about the spots you are worried about, and say what the carpet or rug is made of if you know.
The one thing I would ask you not to do is attack a stain with something from the store in the days before I come. That is the prep mistake that costs people money.
I worked in a warehouse for twelve years before this. My best friend's dad had a carpet cleaning company and I rode along with him on weekends until I finally quit and went out on my own. One job at a time, done right, and it turned into a nice little business.
Thirteen years later I am still on every job. So when I tell you not to bother doing something before I get there, it is not a sales line. It is just me telling you what actually matters.
Get the room count right when you call
I charge a flat rate per room. Clean, sanitize, deodorize, protect, all of it in the one number. You tell me how many rooms and what needs doing, and I can give you the price over the phone for free before I ever pull up. If you would rather I come look at it first, I will do that too.
That means the count matters. A few things people get wrong:
- Stairs are carpet. A flight of stairs is real work and it needs to be in the count, not remembered when I walk in the door.
- Walk the house before you call. The hallway, the closet nobody thinks about, the finished basement. Decide what is in and what is out so the number I give you is the number you pay.
- Mention the furniture you want done. Couches and chairs are a big part of what I do, and it is easier to schedule the time up front than to add it on the spot. The one thing I do not clean is leather.
If you have a wool rug or something unusual, say so when you book. Wool takes different handling than synthetic, and knowing beforehand means I show up planning for it instead of adjusting on the fly.
Please do not pre-treat it
This is the real answer to the question, and it is the part nobody tells you.
People see me on the calendar for Thursday and figure they will get a head start Tuesday. Baking soda, a bottle from the grocery store, maybe a rental machine. I understand the instinct. It usually makes my job harder and sometimes it makes the stain permanent.
- Store-bought spot cleaners leave residue. That residue is sticky, it holds soil, and now I am cleaning your carpet and cleaning the product off your carpet. Some of it genuinely will not come out.
- Baking soda mostly stays in the pile. It absorbs a little odor off the top and then sits there, and the actual source is usually well below where it can reach.
- Rental machines put down more water than they pull back. What stays behind is moisture in the pad. With a pet spot in particular, that can leave you worse off than when you started.
- Heat on an untreated urine spot can set it. If you steam a spot before anything has been done to break down what is in there, you can lock the odor in deeper instead of lifting it.
So if something happened last week and you already called me, leave it alone. Blot it if it is wet and wait for me. A fresh spot I see first is a much better outcome than a spot that has had a bottle of something worked into it.
What happens when I pull up
You will get an email before I arrive with my picture on it and an arrival window, so you know who is coming to your door. That is not a small thing. Most of my customers are women and a lot of them are home alone during the day, and I would want to know too.
When I get there, the first thing we do is walk the house together. You show me what you want done and what you are worried about. That walkthrough is the whole reason I do not need you to prep much. I would rather see the room the way you actually live in it than have everything staged for me.
Then I give you the price, I run my hoses, and I do the work. When I am finished we walk the house again so you can look at it with me before I leave. After that, you have a 7-day callback. If anything looks off once the carpet is dry, you call me and I come back and take care of it. No argument.
That callback matters more than it sounds, because a lot of what you are judging cannot be judged while the carpet is still wet. You find out two or three days later. That is exactly what the seven days are for.
A note on what I put down
I go as green as the job allows, which covers most of what I do. Some jobs genuinely need something stronger, and when that is the case I tell you before I use it and I tell you how long to keep pets and kids off that area. You will not find out afterward.
I use rotary scrubbers rather than a wand alone, which works the fibers instead of just rinsing the top of them, and it is part of my 12-step process: clean, sanitize, deodorize, protect. I am IICRC certified in carpet cleaning, upholstery, green cleaning and flood restoration, and I am insured.
He and his team were at my house the next day.
Nikki McCarthy, 5 starsMost of my work is close to home. Lombard is where I am based and you can see jobs and reviews from around town on the Lombard service area page, and there are more of them on my reviews page. If you are dealing with pet odor specifically, I wrote about why dog smell keeps coming back and what actually removes it.
Questions I get before the appointment
How long do I have to stay off the carpet after cleaning?
It depends on the room, the carpet and what the job needed, so I will give you a straight answer on site rather than a number off a website. If a job calls for something stronger than my usual green products, I will tell you up front how long to keep pets and kids off that area. Either way, walking on damp carpet in street shoes is the fastest way to undo the work, so give it time.
Is it worth getting carpets professionally cleaned?
If the alternative is a rental machine, yes, and not for the reason you would think. The difference is not the soap, it is the extraction and the agitation. Rotary scrubbers work the fibers and a truck-mounted system pulls the water back out. A rental unit leaves moisture behind, and moisture in the pad is how you end up with a smell you did not have before.
Is it cheaper to clean the carpet myself?
By the time you rent the machine, buy the solution and give up a Saturday, the gap is smaller than people expect. And a do-it-yourself job that goes wrong is not neutral. It can leave residue and moisture that make the professional clean harder later. I would rather you call me first than call me second.
Is it worth cleaning carpet that is twenty years old?
Usually, yes. I have cleaned carpet older than that which had never been done professionally and it came back further than the homeowner expected. Old carpet will not look new, and I will tell you honestly if I think you are at the point where you are better off replacing it. But most people give up on their carpet several years before they need to.
Do I need to be home while you work?
For the walkthrough at the start and the walkthrough at the end, it helps a lot. That is where you tell me what you actually care about and where you get to look at the work with me before I pack up. What happens in between is on me.
Call me and we will get it on the schedule
Tell me how many rooms and what you are dealing with and I will give you a flat rate on the phone. I am on every job, so the person you talk to is the person showing up at your door.
Monday to Friday 7am to 8pm. Saturday 7am to 6pm. Closed Sunday.
