[Paul Kettless]

Took a call from a custy to ask for my help, hubby had hired a rug doctor on Saturday and the carpet is still wet. (wed eve )

Went to see the custy at the end of my pre booked day, and the windows and walls were saturated.

Pulled the carpet up, and the underlay was soaked, as was the tiled floor.  Literally puddles of water on the floor.

Hubby was there, and was asking me all these questions, well it was not my fault, the water coming out was black so I just kept filling it up he said   He reckons he put about 20-30 buckets of water through the machine over a four hour period, room size was 14x12...

Needless to say, underlay was knackered, which I replaced (mate is carpet fitter, leftovers from jobs   Had to extract the backing as well as the carpet and perform a re-fit.
Custys 20 quid hire ended up costing him another £120 - say he has learnt his lesson the hard way.

Best wishes for christmas guys
Paul

[carpet guy]

Rug doctors are now being  aggressively marketed, through T V, directly to the home owner nd it's not just the little one, so, with the Hoover, Bex Bissel, newmodel Vax and rug Doctor a lot of people will no longer need c/c services.

[Mark Roberts]

If everybody took their shoes off before walking in and used a rug doctor every few months the way its meant to be used then yes, we would be jobless. Luckily like the vax and the reply above proves people will always pay for a service rather than make a hash of it.

[John Milnes]

On the TV add, the Rug Docter is even compared with a truck mount!  leaving a white stripe on a blackened carpet.

These tv shopping adds should be exposed as misadvertising.

Have been to a few custys lately where Rug Doctor has been used.....brought the dirt to the surface and looked worse than before.

Perhaps ok for a superficial clean....but no where near as good as the add would have you believe.

[Paul Kettless]

Agree with the above comments, they certainly have a place in the market place, but should not be marketed in the way that they are as a solution to all your needs.

My custy above was completely fooled by the hype, and I genuinly believe that he assumed it would be very easy.

The only good point that came out of this for me was that he was chuffed to bits with his clean carpets and informed me that he would never be hiring one again and would keep my number handy

[Neil Williams]

Give it time and more and more will make a right hash of what we know can be a basic job. The country is full of tradesmen who have had to go in behind DIYers to put right a simple job.

[carpet guy]

When the original tub VAX was launched, it sold in thousands and had an effect on the c/c market, but most were despatched to the rear of cupboards and eventually dumped.

The new generation of upright cleaners with aggitating brushes, are capable of maintaining carpets, if used regularly, and apparently, can also clean upholstery.

However, they are heavy to use, don't come with commercial grade chemicals and would probably need to be refilled 4 or 5 times while cleaning an average lounge, but, at less than £100, which many are charging for one room, they must look pretty attractive to many consumers.

Never underestimate the enemy !

[Pureandclean]

I haven't cleaned carpets for a few years now, ( too busy with window cleaning ) but lady customer asked me if I knew anything about these rug doctor machines, as she had been using it for several hours, but it didn't seem to be very effective.
 I went upstairs, 3 story house and took a look at the machine, turned it on, no water coming out, had a quick look underneath, couldn't see anything wrong. I was just about to leave scratching my head, when I noticed that she had put the water in the dirty water bucket not the clean water one. She had spent hours going up and down, without a drop of water being applied to the carpet, needless to say when I told her she was a bit sheepish.

Blessings

[Les]

Had a customer the other day who said' " I hope you don't charge too much, I can hire a Rug doctor for £40 for the weekend"  :

" That's possibly true I said", " But remember to take your Passport & a Utility bill for everyone to have a look at as they need these to prove your identity, Oh & your credit card to pay a deposit before you can struggle getting it all in our car in the cold,  struggle getting it into your house, moving the furniture and spending ages on your hands and knees trying to remove those stains you've got" !

I think she got the message  ....and I got the job 

Like most advertising, it all seems so easy on the telly, I tell them like it really is  !

Have a good Christmas everyone. (where's the Santa smiley face for us to use Mike ?) 

Les

[Dave_Lee]

I think these machines are GREAT for our business. When Vax which had been around but very much underpromoted, got the deal with Woolworths to push them, the demand took off. Suddenley everyone had a Vax. However everyone who purchased one then became aware that the machine did not do all the work in cleaning their carpets after all. They sweated and laboured and finally got the message that its not only easier to call in a professional cleaner but the jobs a better one as well. I found their introduction did nothing but further promote Professional cleaning and dont see them as a threat at all, in fact just the opposite.
Dave.

[*paul_moss]

I find the rug doctors fine. I have put them in 2 of my residential homes that I clean for, they are great for spills, wettings  and light cleans, with the correct trainning they work perfectly fine and I have never expriencd over wetting or prolonged dryin.