I was about 15 minutes behind schedule for an 8:30 AM appointment yesterday. Street signs in the area were misleading, as was my street atlas. Called the house for help, and it went to voice-mail "Sorry. Nobody is home right now..........." That was worrisome, but it could just mean someone is on the computer, or Mom is out briefly driving kids to school. Saw a group of 3 neighborhood gals out power-walking, and they told me where the street was.
There was a note on the door when I got there. "Dear carpet cleaners. Come right in. Door is unlocked. Dog is friendly, etc........." As soon as I got inside, and had closed the door behind me, the very aggressive barking and baring of large teeth started up. A large black dog on mixed-breed came charging down the stairs and cornered me right there in the front hall. After a couple of "nice doggies" from me did nothing to quiet him down, I was afraid to make any kind of move. So I just stayed like a statue, hoping he would get bored and go back upstairs. Well, this noisy and threatening scenario must have gone on for somewhere between three and five minutes before I heard the Mom arrive back at the house. She came in the front door, saw immediately what was going on, and quickly took the dog away. I was
bull*&#@, and let her know how I felt - that I never should have been invited in when such a dog was free on the premises. She kind of mumbled something about it was her husband, not her, who had left me the note.
It was then kind of tense when she took me around the house to show me what the job entailed.
While doing the upstairs work (4 bedrooms and a hall) at one point I sprayed a room, them put my sprayer down in the hall while I worked with my Challenger in the room. When I went back to get the sprayer, I saw that it hadn't clicked off, and had been spraying right there onto the hall carpet for a full 5 minutes or so. (More profanity!) I grabbed a dry pad and started going at the wet area to blot up the liquid. I needed 4 pads before it looked as if I had gotten all that I could, but realizing that a lot was already down in the base of the carpet. Boy, that area came really, REALLY clean! Since I was using Vacaway's Encap-Green, I wasn't too worried about the excess, since it would dry to a crystal, not to something that would eventually work its way to the surface and start attracting soil. It's more than 36 hours later now, and I haven't gotten a call that the 2nd floor hall looks "kind of funny". And the job paid over $500, so I guess all's well that ends well.
Morals of the story: don't go alone into a house with a dog you don't know, AND, always make sure your sprayer is off, or put the nozzle in a bucket or a bathtub.
Mark, I apologize if you've already covered this in a separate blog, but I'm interested in learning more about using encap in residential. We've tried using encap with the challenger (with fiber max pad), but have not had the best results. I think part of the problem is with the sprayer...encap seems to require a high volume spray in order to get enough to foam up on the carpet and truly clean. Have you found this too? What type of sprayer do you use? Have your residential customers been happy with encap? I would assume that it is more time efficient than op...? We have the Green Encap and use it for commercial, but not residential (yet).
This is a good technical question, Kevin. So that it doesn't get lost under this "attempted amusing stories" category, I'm going to re-post it under the heading "Sprayable Encap Products" right now.
