Today I had a "call back" where a customer from 3 weeks ago called me back to their home because several areas in their living room had had some dark spots return. They weren't unhappy with the carpet cleaning as a whole, as I had turned a very trashed carpet into something live-able.

At any rate, a lot of spotting and darker type areas had returned in their living room, in areas I recalled as most likely being from pet accidents.

The first time I had used the last of my Outsolv at double strength on half, and Naturell on the other half. Both had some spots return, roughly equally.

I'm curious as to what the likely culprit is. For some reason they have glue down commercial type carpet in their living room. As I recall I got this carpet a bit wetter than normal due to heavy soiling, so that could have been the problem.

I re-did the room today with an encap product, scrubbed in with a fiber plus pad, followed by several pads to pull some dirt out, followed by 3 dry pads. The carpet looks good as new now, so I hope it stays that way. I'll be really surprised if the stains return this time. Any thoughts? Do encap products reduce the likelihood of recurring spots?

Thanks. -Grant

No doubt about it!
I have a CGD in a pharmacy I do 2-3 times/yr. A couple years ago,a customer spilled a BIG bottle of eucalyptus on it,and didn't clean it up,or call me!!
I tried everthing me and the boards could think of,didn't budge..I gave up on it,and so did the client.
Recently I tried ReleaseIT on this account with low expectations. It not only got that oil out,but it hasn't come back. Needless to say everyone is very happy ReleaseIT has Soileze(sp)in it, to stop wickbacks,and it really works!

Grant, i would be REAL surprised if the spots came back to. sounds like you handled it perfectly.

Encap rocks huh?

take care --- Derek

Thanks for the comments guys. I think I might add encap punch to my all-natural product line and when I encounter certain situations recommend it to the customer, let them know it's not all-natural, but still very safe and possibly a better performer for their particular situation.

Mark, when you encounter very heavily soiled/stained/pet accident situations how do you handle them? Do you clean them twice (once with enzyme, second with outsolv), then dry-pad? or do you just add oban to your solution and proceed as normal? Just looking for tips.

PS: Those fibre-plus and max pads work great. What a relief, it's like carpet bombing and then just going in with the pads for the clean-up.

Oban is not for spot or soil removal. Only use it, mixed in with your cleaner, or sprayed onto a particular spot, when odor is a problem.

For heavily soiled areas, I am most likely to go in first with a fiber plus or max pad, then wrap things up with a cotton pad. In CGD situations (straight encap) it's just "scrub 'n run". No need to extract via cotton pads.