Carpet shampoo specialists in Greater London
“I got most of it out myself before I rang you.” That sentence has cost more London carpets than the spill ever does. The bottle goes over on the bedroom floor, somebody fetches the remover from the bathroom, and twenty minutes of determined work turns a two-inch red mark into a ten-inch pale patch with … Read More “Nail Varnish and Acetone, or Why Solvents Dissolve Carpet Backing” »
The call comes in at ten past five on a Friday. A woman in a flat off Walm Lane has moved out on Wednesday, the check-out report landed an hour ago, and the clerk has marked the lounge carpet down for two brown marks near the sofa. She has our invoice in front of her. … Read More “Guaranteed Carpet Re-Cleans: What End of Tenancy Guarantees Actually Cover” »
A wand-only clean on a filthy rental carpet is close to a con, and the trade knows it. I say that as someone who runs a truckmount and believes hot water extraction is the best rinse mechanism available to us. The problem is what happens when extraction becomes the entire method rather than the last … Read More “Rotary Versus Wand Extraction on Heavily Soiled Rental Carpets” »
A 4m by 4m wool carpet holds somewhere around one and a half litres of water after a competent hot water extraction. That is the figure worth sitting with. Not a damp feeling underfoot, not a bit of moisture in the pile – a litre and a half of water, plus whatever is sitting in … Read More “Drying Carpets in a London Winter – Realistic Timings for Flats Without Trickle Vents” »
Lift the corner of a fitted carpet in a Camberwell terrace and the smell reaches you before the view does. Old soot, brick dust, something faintly mushroomy coming off the joist ends. Beneath the underlay sits pine laid in the 1880s that has shrunk every winter since, and the gaps between those boards are wide … Read More “Carpet Cleaning in Victorian Terraces: Working Around Original Floorboards and the Gaps Beneath the Underlay” »
People ask me this on the doorstep, usually half-apologising for the state of the thing before I’ve even seen it. Fifteen years, three kids, a dog, and now a carpet the colour of the pavement in the doorways. The honest answer is: sometimes yes, sometimes no, and the difference isn’t the age. Plenty of fifteen-year-old … Read More “Is There Any Point Cleaning a Carpet That Has Been Down Fifteen Years?” »
Someone’s had a nosebleed, or a dog’s torn a pad, and there’s a red patch on the carpet with a kettle or a hot tap within reach. The instinct is to go at it hot, because hot water cleans everything else. With blood it does the opposite. Hot water is the surest way to turn … Read More “Why Is Hot Water the Wrong First Move For Blood Stains On Carpets” »
I get asked to “steam the carpets and sort the bed bugs” more than you’d think, usually by someone who’s found the bites, then found the bugs, and wants one phone call to make the whole thing go away. I understand the hope. I have to disappoint it early, because the honest version of my … Read More “Bed Bugs and Carpet Edges: What a Carpet Cleaner Can and Cannot Treat” »
The skip’s gone, the dust sheets are down, and the room looks finished until the light catches the carpet. Then you see it – a grey bloom over everything, worked into the pile, drifting up again every time someone walks across. Plaster dust is the aftermath nobody warns you about. The plasterers do a tidy … Read More “What to Do About Carpets Covered in Plaster Dust After Building Work” »
The dinner went well. The carpet did not. Every February I get a run of these calls, and they follow the same shape – a good evening, low light, a bottle of something, and a candle that either got knocked or was left to gutter down onto a cream Berber it had no business being … Read More “How To Remove Candle Wax From Carpets After a Romantic Dinner” »
