Safe Carpet Cleaning
When the time comes, do you know how safe carpet cleaning generally is? Do you worry that the chemicals involved in the process may hurt your children or pets? Do you know if your preferred cleaning firm simply ‘offers’ green cleaning products, or is it the only product they offer? Unfortunately many companies either will not use green products, or simply offer them as a marketing ploy.
Changing Times
As a second generation cleaning professional, I have witnessed the transition that my industry has undertaken. My father started in the carpet cleaning business some thirty years ago. Back then people were not so worried about how dangerous some chemicals were. Back then most folks did not even know there was any reason to be concerned. back then, making things look clean was all that mattered. What was used to accomplish this was irrelevant, safe carpet cleaning did not matter.
The whole process was different in those days. When carpet looked dirty, you cleaned it with a high residue soap product. This caused the carpet to attract soil faster, making cleaning required every three to six months. The use of self neutralizing cleaning products or rinse agents just was not available yet. One of the best cleaners was a solvent that years later was found to be terrible for the environment and the cleaner to be around, far from ‘safe carpet cleaning’.
When safe carpet cleaning ‘Green’ products were first produced, they were not much better in the terms of residue and resoiling concerns. The difference was that they were safe for the cleaner to use regularly. Unfortunately, many simply did not work very well. Most cleaners would shun them as ineffective, or ‘might as well be cleaning with just water’ (which does not clean carpet well on its own). Even when I first started eleven years ago, green products left much to be desired in performance.
Modern Cleaning
When I started in this industry, much work had been done to eliminate the most dangerous products from our repertoire. Many of the resoiling issues had been taken care of. Rinse agents that neutralized presprays or detergents that crystallize into a powder leaving no residue had been introduced to replace the old technology of sticky soaps. The most harmful cleaning products are no longer available and reputable suppliers offer relatively safe carpet cleaning products. Honestly, consumer safe carpet cleaning is generally attained by most cleaners. Products used today are not harmful for you to be around for the short period of time it is in your home. How harmful it is on the cleaner is another story.
My Story
See the little girl in the picture? That is my five year old little girl helping me clean her playroom. Four and a half years ago I started heavily researching green cleaning product and safe carpet cleaning procedures. 4 years ago we started First Class Green Cleaning. Coincidence?
I spent the my first six years working for an old company that did things the old fashioned way. Old chemistry, old cleaning procedures, old customer service, old work ethic. Some of these things are good, old fashioned customer service is a lost art, old fashioned work until its done attitude is hard to find. But old cleaning procedures and use of older chemicals is simply unnecessary and lazy. While the chemicals I used in those days did not harm my clients, I had a routine every day when I would get home. I would but my dried out hands under cool running water, and wait for the soap bubbles to stop. Sometimes it took seconds, usually it was minutes of rinsing before my skin was soap free. Back then I often thought, “This cannot be healthy!”.
When my little girl came along, I spent the first six months of her life refusing touch her until I had showered and changed from my work clothes out of fear of what my products could do to such a little one. After this I decided enough was enough, and tried to spear head a movement to safe carpet cleaning products and procedures at my old employer. When this was shot down, Corey and I started our own cleaning service. One dedicated to safe and effective cleaning of anything you could sit walk or sleep on.
So, when you decide it is time for it, call us for a truly safe carpet cleaning experience.
