[Mike Halliday]

cleaned a carpet on Monday the customer rang me on wednesday saying the room smelled 'musty' , again today she rang and said it still had an odour on a night.

i went along and had a smell but could'nt smell anything.

the carpet was nylon with a rubberised backing, i lifted the carpet and inspected the underlay to see if any moister had gone through, but it was dry.

I cleaned it with a M/S and freshwater rinsed.


she not happy, what else can i do?

[Dynafoam]

Mike,

Two possibilities:

The carpet does have an odour to which she is more sensitive than you.

The carpet does not have an odour but she believes that it has. People have been duped by advertisers that laundry is 'clean and fresh' because it stinks of flowers, mountains or whatever perfume they have added to the product. Since M/S are odourless she may initially have noticed perhaps a damp wool odour and convinced herself that it is musty.

To cover both the possibility of real and imagined odours I would suggest first force-ventilating the room with an air-mover pointed at an open outside door or window. Next mist the carpet with an odour neutraliser that has its' own odour - Amtech Deo-Reo 40 would be ideal @ 16ml/ltr of warm water. Allow to dry naturally.

This should take care of any musty odour at source and deal with the psychological element by giving her an alternative odour. A little selling of the products' 'magical' powers and great cost would bolster the effect.

On the other hand she is a woman 

[woodman]

Quite a common problem,

Once the customer has experienced a malodour from the original clean it tends to stay with them even though when you visited their was no perceivable smell and there probably isn't you will not convince her as her brain has logged it and she will want action to correct her way of thinking and sensing smell.

You have already attempted removal but as far as she is concerned you just did the same thing again.

Do you know any one with DF or Texatherm ? If you do get them round( its something diffirent)  they will explain about Bactoshield and Texatherms anti bacterial cleaners and I bet that will be an end to it.

If you don't know anybody you may need to fog the room to kill any smells real or not

[Ken Wainwright]

Mike

John and Trevor have covered this well, but  I am intrigued by the source of this apparent odour. If it's real, it may be more noticeable first thing in the morning when the rooms door is first opened. It's also not too uncommon for the source to be from mould that could be present on, in under or near the carpet, so check doorways and windows, corners, behind floor length curtains and check to see if central heating pipes disappear into the wall I've come across this where a curtain pelmet or perhaps a nail for a wall mounted picture has penetrated a hidden water pipe, Drips inside the wall have meant mould growth which is then highlighted by the cleaning.

One problem I had many years ago after cleaning was a musty smell which wasn't previously obvious (perhaps because it was a trashed carpet/room). After the normal analytical approach, I discovered that the teenage children walked around bare footed. I detected the slight hint of sweaty feet in front of the sofa. And before you ask, the answer is yes, Madam and I were on our knees sniffing the carpet together

Safe and happy sniffing
Ken

[Len Gribble]

Mike

All has been covered what about adding something to your rinsing agent let the customer choose.

By the way I hate what wife uses as fab conditioner in the washing machine, here excuse it must have been  had to put up with it all day.

Len

[David Ware]

Mike
Solution do a good deodour product from Geruch just mist after cleaning gives that old perceived effect of cleaning,if it smells and looks clean it must be clean.
David Ware

[Mike Halliday]

the problem is she's convinced i must have over-wet the carpet and the smell is 'mouldyness' so she won't be too happy on me applying more wetness to the carpet.

Today I left 2 airmovers for 6 hours to help ventalate the room, and told her that the 'smell' would go away.

she says the smell is so bad on an evening that she feels sick when you goes into the room! ( I think she's a bit of a drama queen)

its a very difficult situation, i want the lady too be happy with my cleaning but in the end I'm either going to have to agree with her and give her a new carpet ( which is want I think she's after) or tell her its all in her head and tell her to get stuffed.

Mike

[Martin Sambrook]

Hi Mike,
would it be possible to get another cc in your area to go round this customer and back you up, the last thing you should have to do is cough up for a new carpet if its not your fault. You may lose her as a repeat customer but i dont think that would be too much of a loss

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Mike use that 'antibacterial mould remedy fogger' I sold you last year or I have an ozone machine you may borrow FOC.

Shaun

[conallon]

Hi Mike
           Think Ken as hit nail on the head i would say problem with walls or floor possibly some kind of rising damp ( husbands not called rigsby his he  ) if you want me to go and pay her a visit give us a bell

                                         best regards Conrad

p.s are we all having a night out on slurp for chrisy

[eclipse]

MIKE
 i am the other side of the bridge to you sc unthorpe  and i am IICRC ODOUR CONTROL Certified and if you would like me to pop over and give a second opinion (agreeing with yours of course)i can also check for moisture with protimeter and if signs of damp are present i can arrange a salts test for you
i am quite happy to do so as long as you put the kettle on !!
it sound like to me as other people have said like heightened awareness i have come accross this many times with fire restoration it is all in the head as we know!
Now as we all now to have an odour you MUST have a source if you havnt got a source you have got it "in the head"
perhaps your customer hearing from another carpet cleaner that they cannot smell anything may put her mind at rest
(PSThanks for the help on my problem belgian wilton John Bolton  great things powerstretchers!!)

Cheers

Lee Robinson

[David Ware]

Mike
It might sound silly but have you got down on your hands and knees and smelt the carpet with your nose. Or better still ask her to locate the sourse for you. ''It might be a gold medalist claim''

David Ware 

[Mike Halliday]

david, have you ever seen the size of my nose? i just have to tilt my head and it touches the floor

yes I got on my knees and stuck my nose in  the carpet, could'nt smell anything.

Mike

[Big_Fish]

I remember a customer of ours last year who didn't seem to notice that her whole house had a dirty odour.

Once we'd cleaned she commented that she didn't like the odour that was left and that it had taken several days to go away.

The odour that she didn't like was a clean smell, and after a few days the smell of the dirty washing, dog and sweaty beds had a chance to take over again which she found quite normal and acceptable!!

BFN

[Mike Halliday]

I hav'nt heard anymore from this customer so I'm assuming the smell went away.

but this problem has made me question the wisdom of using a freshwater rinse, some areas like the traffic lanes & in front of the settee needed 3 attempt to get it clean. Perhaps I did overwet the carpet and caused a wet smell.

would this have happened if I'd had a detergent in the tank?  perhaps the detergent would have removed the soil that the Microsplitter failed to loosen, and a perfume additive might have masked the smell until the carpet completely dried.

i might start adding a mild detergent into my rinsing.

Mike

[Big_Fish]

Back to the discussion on whether microslitting is as good as conventionals then

We often don't use microsplitters in very heavy soil areas...back to basics.

BF Nicky

[paul@ctcs]

Big_fish, I have used Heavy duty microsplitters on some completely filthy commercial carpet and it out performed one of the markets leading HD conventional detergents head to head.

Paul

[Big_Fish]

Yes Paul, so have we.

The performance is better in very short pile synthetics.

BF Nicky