Quote:
Originally Posted by rbowman
nestork wrote:
When a professional carpet cleaner is hired to shampoo an old carpet
that he suspects is going to stink after cleaning, he'll add a
bacteriacide to the solution tank water. So, the water he sprays down
on the carpet kills all the bacteria it contacts, and that prevents the
carpet smell. It's not the best way of doing things, but he'd rather do
that than get complaints about the smell afterwards, or explain to the
customer that they really need a new carpet and not get the job at all.
Why not? I'm not arguing just curious why a bacteriacide wouldn't be a good
SOP?
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That's a good question.
I regularily shampoo the carpets in 19 rented apartments after tenants move out, and I never have to use a bacteriacide so it's something that just never crossed my mind. Why not use a bacteriacide just in case? The chemicals aren't expensive, and if I were going to shampoo someone else's carpet, where I really didn't know the condition of the carpet, it would be smart to use a bacteriacide in the solution tank just to make sure I didn't get complaints about the carpet smelling afterwards.
I guess the same question could be rephrased as: "Why don't we add a bottle of methyl hydrate everytime we fill up our gas tanks in the winter?" It wouldn't cost very much, and it would prevent our cars from stalling if water got into the gas tank. And I guess the best answer to that question is that it's normally not a problem.
It's very possible that most carpet cleaning contractors automatically add bacteriacides to their solution tank as standard operating procedure, just to prevent customer complaints about smelly carpets. It's just that I don't know if they all do that all the time. My understanding is that they only do it when they suspect a carpet will smell.