Jim's Magic Mist

AWARENESS TIPS

Misconception #1. You should wait as long as possible before cleaning your carpets.
No. Dirt is an abrasive – like sandpaper. Every time you step on the carpet, you grind dirt into your carpet fibers. This cuts your carpet, just as if you had used a knife. Causing it to wear out faster. Vacuuming helps, but by itself, it simply not enough. The longer you wait to have your carpet cleaned, the more damage you do to it. In fact, Shaw Industries, the world largest carpet manufacturer recommends cleaning every twelve to eighteen months and failure to do this voids the warranty.

Misconception #2. The only reason to clean carpet is to get out the dirt.

No. Outdoor air contains pollens, fungus, bacteria, air pollution, cigarette smoke, car exhaust and hundreds of other chemicals. When you and your family members come into your home, those pollutants are carried in and usually end up in your carpet.

If you have allergies, asthma, emphysema, or other breathing problems – one major source of your problem could be the pollens, fungus, and chemicals in your carpet.

Misconception #3. One method of carpet cleaning is as good as another.

No. You can choose from many methods, most of which are bad. There are seven methods in common use. Most of which are bad. I will list then in order of effectiveness with the worst first and the best last.

1. Shampoo – A sudsy shampoo is sprayed into the carpet, rubbed with a brush on a rotary scrubber.

*Advantage – The carpet looks clean. ..

*Disadvantage – The dirt is not removed, but driven deeper into the pile. Drying is very slow and re-soiling is very fast. This method can easily damage your carpet.

2. Dry Powder – A powder is sprinkle onto the carpet, brushed in, and vacuumed out.

*Advantage – fast drying.

*Disadvantage – Many types of soil and stains are not removed and a lot of powder residue is left in the carpet.

3. Portable Hot Water Extraction – A small machine is used to spray a water and chemical mixture into the carpet and vacuum it out.

*Advantage – Some of the dirt is removed.

*Disadvantage – The portable machines are not powerful enough to pull out the water they put in. Drying time is very long and lots of dirt is left in the carpet. This method, if carelessly used can damage carpet, backing, and floors and can cause mildew.

4. Dry Foam – A machine whips up sudsy shampoo into a foam, splashes it down onto the carpet rubs it with a brush and vacuums it.

*Advantage – Dries in one or two hours depending on how many times the operator has to go over an area. This method does a nice job of cleaning the surface if the carpet is not to dirty.

*Disadvantage – If the carpet is heavily soiled this method does not clean very well. Also if the operator goes over the area many times in order to get the carpet cleaner deeper down, it will wet the carpet almost as much as the truck mounted hot water extraction method. Doing a good job with this method takes a very long time.

5. Dry Chemical or “Spin Bonnet” – A chemical mixed with water is sprayed onto the carpet and then the carpet is rubbed with a cotton pad on a rotary scrubber. This rubs the dirt off the carpet onto the cotton pads.

*Advantage – Dries in ½ hour to 1½ hours, does a relatively good cleaning job on very low pile commercial level-loop carpets.
*Disadvantage – Again this method cleans mostly the surface, it works well on very low pile carpet, but anything with any depth to it is not cleaned very well. Like the dry foam method it leaves a residue and some people say that it does a very good job the first couple of times but that the residues builds up and on the third or fourth cleaning it no longer comes out looking good.

6. Truck Mounted Hot Water Extraction – This is similar to the portable hot water extraction in that hot water mixed with chemicals is sprayed into the carpet and then vacuumed back out again. Usually the operator will use a pre-conditioner to start to soak the dirt loose the difference in this method is that all the machinery is out in the truck and runs either on its own engine or from the trucks engine and only the hoses come inside to do the cleaning. This allows for more powerful machine and with greater suction. More of the water is removed and therefore more of the dirt.

*Advantages – More vacuum power takes out more water and therefore more dirt. Drying time usually ranges from anywhere five hours to twenty-four hours, depending on the type of carpet, air circulation, relative humidity, and degree of soiling. Another advantage is that doing a good job with this method is considerably faster than with any of the others.

*Disadvantages – Slow drying time, some truck mounted machines run only on a little two cylinder lawn mower engine which cannot make a tremendous amount of power. Also even of the technician is using a very powerful machine if that technician is not well trained and experienced he can soak the carpet to the point where it can do damage. In general, this is the best method of cleaning but be sure the technicians are highly trained and experienced.

7. The Magic Mist Steam / Dry Method – Essentially this is still the truck mounted steam extraction method, a solution of hot water and chemicals is sprayed into the carpet and then vacuumed back out. The difference is in the power. Our steam / dry machines are among the biggest and most powerful available in the world. They are capable of water temperatures up to 230 degrees Fahrenheit which help to kill germs and break up dirt, bacteria, and pollen. They produce more vacuum power than any others machine which suck out more water and therefore also more soil and pollutants. Think about it. We clean carpet by dissolving the dirt in water and then extracting the water, every drop of water that the technician leave in the carpet contains dirt and pollutants. The more water we extract the more soil is removed. These machines are very expensive, (I fact, each one cost more than my house), so we have to charge a little more to use than, but it is well worth it, because it cleans deeper than any other method can.

*Advantage – Deeper cleaning, faster drying. Carpet take less time to clean and we do not have to rub and scrub over the same areas as hard, this is better for your carpet. Drying times can be as low as one hour is conditions are perfect, but usually are some what longer. My own carpeted home dries on about three hours but it use to take twelve hours when I used the standard steam extraction method. This is the preferred method of most of the major carpet manufacturers.

*Disadvantages – I have not found any yet but I will let you know if I do.

In the 29 years that I have been in the carpet cleaning business I have personally used five out of the seven methods that I have described. I still offer all of the last three and the client has his or her choice of which method is to be used. But, personally I would not have my home cleaned with any other method, but the Magic Mist Steam/Dry System.

Misconception #4. Having the right equipment is all a company needs to clean your carpets properly.
Not true. Many companies own hot-water cleaners – but a large number of employees don’t know how to use them correctly. This is why it’s important that you choose your carpet cleaner carefully. Magic Mist uses only highly trained and experienced technicians. At this time each crew that comes into a customers home had at least one person with over twenty years experience and some of our technicians have as much as 29 years experience. Magic Mist continually adopts any new technique and / or cleaning solutions that we find to would work better than our current method.

Misconception #5. The company that offers the lowest price is the company you should hire.

Occasionally this is true but very rarely. This is the most common of all of the misconceptions. This is an old axiom that I have always used. “The most expensive is not always the best, the cheapest is usually the worst.” You should check prices because it is easy to get ripped off by a cleaner who charges to much and does not give good value for what he does. Here are two important points to consider.

Point #1: The price you see offered may not be for the service you want performed. If you want the carpet cleaner to remove only some of the dirt, you choose from hundreds of companies that use small shampooers or other cleaning methods. On the other hand, if you want your carpet thoroughly cleaned removing dirt, bacteria, pollens, chemicals and tobacco residues – then you need to use a company that offers one of the two methods we mentioned earlier or both of the two methods mentioned earlier like Magic Mist does.

Point #2: The price you see advertised may not be the price you pay. Many home owners have learned that the low price they saw advertised was not the amount they are charged. Either yourself or someone you know may have been the victim of false or misleading advertising. Some carpet cleaners advertise room cleaning between $5.95 and $14.95 per room – and then pressure you into paying a lot more once they get inside your home. Some of them may even break the law by using illegal bait and switch tactics.

As in all business and professions, the carpet cleaning industry has its share of bad apples. We take no pleasure in telling you this, but some are unethical - - and sadly, a shadow on our entire industry.

There are some honest carpet cleaners who try to do a good job cheap using truck mounted equipment, but if their price is so cheap that they do not make a profit they can not afford to buy the best equipment or chemical, nor can they afford to pay top notch people to do the job.

The cleaner that you choose should depend on not just the money you pay but the value you get for what you pay.

Then you’ll find other carpet cleaning companies like Magic Mist has decided to devote time and energy toward educating the public. The only way you can make an intelligent decision is to have all the facts you need.

Even the expensive carpet cleaning companies can rip people off if they don’t know what questions to ask and don’t get enough information in advance. This is a true story that happened a couple of years ago. A consumer had a large of home with a equivalent of twelve rooms plus four bound rugs that were not very big and two kitchen chairs. She saw that and expensive company, a big national franchise, was advertising “special” of 12 rooms for $ 310.00, thus a little over $ 25.00 per room and is quite a good price of the job is done right. When she called them she forgot to mention the four bound rugs and the chairs and she did not ask them about scotchgard. When the crew arrived and they started working she told them about the rugs and they asked her if she wanted scotchgard and she accepted. But, they did not tell her the price, about half way through the job they told her that the cost would be over $700.00 instead of the $310.00. She was not happy with that but said to go ahead. When the job was finished they presented her with a bill for 1,340.00. I had the opportunity to look over the bill and indeed did charge $310.00 for the cleaning of the twelve rooms just like they advertised, but they had not told her that they charged $1.00 per sq. ft. For bound rugs. This came to almost $400.00 for her four small rugs and that there price of scotchgard was 70% of the cleaning price which came to about $500.00 for that. The price of the small chairs were outrageously high. When the customer protested this price the two big and intimidating men refused to leave her home until they were paid. She complained to the company management but they refused to do anything to help her.

Misconception #6: All carpet cleaners charge by the square foot.

No. There are many carpet cleaners that charge a fair and exact price by the room. An honest carpet cleaner should be able to give you an exact quote over the phone based on the number of rooms you have, and what method you want to use. Some of the questions that the carpet cleaner should ask while figuring an exact price quote are: How many rooms? Are the living and dining rooms combines? How many baths, halls and closets? Are there stairs? How old is the carpet? When is the last time you had it cleaned?

When booking your cleaning job, be sure to include all the areas that you want cleaned so there isn’t any confusion on the day of cleaning.

If you are thinking about having your carpet cleaned, we offer the four recommendations:

1. Make a commitment to yourself to get your carpets cleaned. The longer they remain dirty, the sooner they’ll wear out. Plus the longer you have to breathe all the pollens, fungus, chemicals and dust mites that live in your carpet.

2. List your objectives. Do you want a thorough cleaning like Magic Mist does, or would you be satisfied with a light cleaning like many companies provide. The companies that provide light cleaning are known to be here today and gone tomorrow.

3. Ask questions. The way you learn about a company is to ask specific questions and listen carefully to the answers. Here are the questions we suggest you ask:

1. What method of carpet cleaning do you recommend?

2. What type of equipment do you use to clean carpet?

3. What does your equipment remove from my carpet?

4. How often should I get my carpets cleaned?

5. What training have you had in cleaning carpets?

6. How much experience do you and your technicians have? Be sure you know the actual technicians who will be cleaning your carpets, not just that of the owner.

7. Ask the prices of every services you wish to have done. Either on the phone before hand or even if you think of some things while the crew is there, ask the crew before they do those services. This way they will not be able to get into your home by offering a cheap price on cleaning and then way over charging your for the extras.

4. Once you satisfied that the company you found to work with is honest, competent,

and punctual, then invite them into your home for a thorough carpet cleaning job. Ask for a total prior to beginning so there won’t be any surprises.

By following these four recommendations, you will gain all the information you need to make an informed, intelligent decisions.

If you would like to have your carpet completely cleaned – removing the bacteria, fungus, chemicals, pollens, and tobacco products. – then we invite you to give us a call or e-mail us at magicmist@shol.com. We will be happy to answer any additional questions you may have regarding carpet cleaning. Our trained customer service staff will be happy to give you a phone quote prepared exclusively for you and your particular needs. Please call us at (814) 443-2173.

Here’s one last point: We know that many consumers are skeptical about carpet cleaning companies. So in addition to our dedication to consumer education, Magic Mist has one more offer:

Our work is 100% guaranteed This is right. You have nothing to lose by calling Magic Mist. When my crew is finished with your cleaning, if you are not 100% satisfied that the best possible job has been done, You do not have to pay me anything, but the guarantee doesn’t end there. Sometimes when a carpet is damp, even we can’t see if we missed something. After we leave, if you should notice anything that does not look as good as you would like it, we will come back at no charge and clean that area again. You can not lose.

Thank you very much. Once again if you have further questions or would like to schedule a carpet cleaning appointment with Magic Mist, then call (814) 443-2173, Pittsburgh area call (877) 61.MAGIC or e-mail us at magicmist@shol.com. We Make Dirt Disappear!!!!