Win a brand new Sapphire Scientific Upholstery Pro Hand Tool

[Mikey P]

Here we go, with just your wit, your word and your willingness to out your hackish self you can win a brand new SS Upholster Pro worth $530
-The World's Greatest Upholstery Cleaning Tool-​

For the next two weeks we will take submissions in this thread of tales of when you messed up bad cleaning upholstery.
Shrunk a piece, bled, torn, removed some color, ruined the wood floor underneath, browned out, streaked, stretched,disintegrated, rusted the buttons or caused mold from hosing it down with your damn HydroForce at 700 PSI..

We want to hear about it and we want you to use your creative writing skills.

Doesn't matter if your literary icons are Hemingway, King or Seuss, do your best to wow the judging panel of Jim Pemberton and Shawn Forsythe in order to score this great prize. Points will be given for wit and prose so go ahead and lie if you think that you'll fool the judges, I could care less. Just make it interesting, somewhat educational and real funny (just like MB)

Winner will be announced on January 22nd

Free shipping included.

This kick ass prize and contest brought to you by Mikey's Board and Legend Brands.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0P4taAPorE

 

[GCCLee]

I quit on that molded chair when I called you : )

 

[Deleted member 51539]

I remember the time, I remember the place.

I remember the look on the Customer’s face.

I remember my DriMaster on the sofa to clean.

I remember running back to "fine tune" the machine.

I remember the water pouring out of the seat.

I remember grabbing towels... admitting defeat.

What I can't remember clearly and must only assume...

The valve was left ON and I forgot to connect the Vacuum.

 

[Desk Jockey]

LOL

Funny Joe!

 

[Spurlington]

I remember the time, I remember the place.

I remember the look on the Customer’s face.

I remember my DriMaster on the sofa to clean.

I remember running back to "fine tune" the machine.

I remember the water pouring out of the seat.

I remember grabbing towels... admitting defeat.

What I can't remember clearly and must only assume...

The valve was left ON and I forgot to connect the Vacuum.

View attachment 3622

 

[Mikey P]

excellent!


How about I submit Marty's for him..

My Name is Marty and I like nuts.


Now give me the prize or I'll stalk you on every forum there is and belittle you endlessly.

 

[joey895]

I remember the time, I remember the place.

I remember the look on the Customer’s face.

I remember my DriMaster on the sofa to clean.

I remember running back to "fine tune" the machine.

I remember the water pouring out of the seat.

I remember grabbing towels... admitting defeat.

What I can't remember clearly and must only assume...

The valve was left ON and I forgot to connect the Vacuum.

That was great and I've done the exact same thing. Mine was a sleeper sofa. I had the cushions off and the drimaster sitting on the deck. Flooded the mattress pretty good. My teenage son was helping me on that job and thought it was quite funny.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Mark Saiger]

Honest to goodness, was cleaning a Beige natural colored sectional that was fairly new, but had spills, finger nail polish, all kind of the typical being used couch spots with teenagers and large dog in the home. I couldn't get all the finger nail polish out and had to run to look at a water damage. I left a note for the lady and apologized I could not get all the finger nail polish out. My son in law finished it up and did get the reminder out and dang, it looked great. Couch looked wonderful actually. She was very happy with the finger nail polish and other stains/spots out.

We used our Prochem with hole glide to do the cleaning. The SS is next on our list to purchase.

Fast forward one month later....Next time we went to clean for her and she said, the cushions looked a bit different and tighter after we cleaned her LINEN POTTERY BARN SECTIONAL.

LINEN?! Which sectional was linen??? (we had cleaned more than one sectional) I honestly thought it was Polyester that way it was shining and testing!!! I suspected maybe a combo of some type of material, but didn't think LINEN!

Felt like a real HACK at that moment! Lucky I didn't do more damage! She was still happy, but I would have at least told her what could happen a bit cleaning this couch. I was lucky something worse hadn't happened also being a pottery barn unit!

The only other problem that sticks in my mind is a recovered chair that the person doing the recover, used black marker on the inside foam....of course, hit it with the prespray and watch the marker come through with a big letter "S" on the white wing back chair. What a pain! But somehow, got it out and kept it away. That was one of the longest hour and half trying to fix a chair moments in my life!

Just a month ago, had a similar looking white couch with a spot. Opened up the zipper to look at the cushion with my crew and we all yell "WHOA!!" as there is black marker all over the place on the foam cushions! Lady says....Is that bad? "'only if we would have got it wet!" Used an encap to spot clean the area, towel dry and said "no charge, have a nice day and thankful past experience bailed me out!"

Now, If I can just recognize a pottery barn Linen! DAMN! HACK, HACK, HACK....

Mark Saiger

 

[Deleted member 51539]

View attachment 3624

Looking back over my carpet cleaning career, I have made what can only be described as “errors in judgment” or complete lack of judgment… depending primarily on who’s point of view you assume. Mine or the Customers.

These errors occurred most frequently when I was servicing an upscale home in a gated community and the Homeowner, usually a married female, who insist on watching everything I did… as If she was taking mental notes all the while garnering professional insight on how to recreate the cleaning with her Bissell in my absence.

I can recall one such incident readily.

It was a hot summer day and I was called upon to “freshen up” a pair of custom upholstered white chenille sofas. You know the type of place…large hall setting surrounded by walls of carved walnut. Venetian mirror hanging over the traditional fireplace surrounded by Verde Green marble. Impressive to say the least.

After exchanging niceties with the Customer, we agreed on a fair compensation rate and with the shake of a hand, I was off to wow her with all my might and IICRC training.

I set up my drop cloth, air movers, table, hoses, all under the close supervision and watchful eye of an attractive middle aged Housewife who took position on the sofa directly across the one I was about to clean.

The conversation was soon replaced with the roar of the machine and I began to complete the assigned task. Throw pillows-check. Seat cushion-check. Arms, sides-check.

Everything was going according to plan until I noticed the base of the sofa (where the long seat cushion rested upon) was made with a burlap or muslin fabric which was almost certainly going to be water stained with the overspray. No problem I thought, I’ll just dry it with a hair dryer and avoid any issues.

As soon as the customer saw me sweating due to hard work and the heat generated from the hair dryer, she asked if I wanted something to drink. I replied “a glass of water if it is not too much trouble” she immediately stood up and headed straight for the kitchen…

I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to put down the hair dryer and “phone in” the backside of the sofa before she returned.

After a few moments cleaning the backside, I began to smell something burning… I had originally pointed the hair dryer lengthwise across the entire seating area to continue the drying process and for some unknown reason the hair dryer did an about face and proceeded to burn a hole into the arm of the sofa.

I quickly extinguished the small fire but all I could remember is the customer asking from the kitchen “do you smell anything burning?” to which I replied “It must be the exhaust fumes from the truck mount… don’t worry I’ll open a window”.

I’ll never forget how fast I assembled that sofa and put it back into use as if nothing happened. The Customer returned a short time later and was impressed with the speed I was moving along…

I completed the other sofa and to this day never mentioned what had happened when my error in judgment almost burnt me in the A$$…

 

[Franklin]

The Time-1994
The Place- Customer s living room
Employer - Sears, Sacramento, Ca
I've been employed for about six months at the time. Cleaning everything they assigned me mainly carpet and upholstery. You have to keep in mind the only training I'd had was the first three days, one hack training another, then I was out on my own ready to conquer the world. One day the manager asked if any of us were interested in a upholstery cleaning class that Sears would pay for and also compensate our lost wages, I thought to my self sure a day off with pay ,now thats what Im talking about. So here we are in class all 22 of us only 3 from Sears. After listening to others, half were owner operators , give excuses why they didn't provide this service all I could think of was , you have to be kidding I've only been doing this for 6 mo. and I've cleaned 100 sofas love seats recliners etc. how hard is it laughing under my breath ( let me tell you I was arrogant as they come!!!) Being the young buck that I was I wasn't going to let some "Instructor" tell me how to properly clean a sofa. So during the class I basically ignored the whole lesson. Fast forward to "The Place" ... the gated community of Rancho Murieta just east of Sac very high end. So I arrive for the appointment , approach the door, introduce my self, and commence doing the walk through agreed on price and off I go. Have to admit I had never seen this material before, but hey no worries right Im a professional, WRONG. After bringing in and setting up the ninja, mind you the bucket brigade to the bathroom up the stairs and mixing my one clean, we used this on everything unless it was a fine fabric then we used Haitian Cotton ( boy i should have took advantage of that class). Im thinking soak a little agitation and suck it out. As I began to mist the fabric nothing noticeable (yet) now after i have it all soaked i began to give it a quick scrub and now Im ready to extract and get out of there, when all of a sudden POP POP POP this white couch is turning Dark on me. I began to soak and suck faster only for it to brown faster. I began to sweat my blood pressure is a rising I begin to hyperventilate, Hearts beating out of my chest, what the...... Now the customer walks in now Im really freaking out, being the "Pro" That I am ( or thought i was ) I start making excuses " whens the last time you had this cleaned? going to blame on last cleaner. First time its been cleaned she says... well can't use that one. She asks me why is it turning Brown? As Im obviously nervous as hell,soaking and sucking all the more she begins to freak out
"what have you done to my sofa do you even know what your doing" , she screams ... NO!!! I Don't Maa'm I scream back isn't that obvious, I don't understand either.!!! I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I told her we'd have to send out a more experienced tech to finish before I could get packed she was on the phone. I left with my tail between my cheeks. Needless to say that was my first encounter with a raw Haitian Cotton sofa.

 

[Jimmy L]

You will never convince me that POS PLASTIC tool is worth no $530.

 

[Mikey P]

well that entry sucked, try again.



with your creative writing skills you should have this one in the bag Ladwig.

 

[bob vawter]

i killt a 93 year old lady on my FIRST JOB.......now
BEAT THAT!

 

[Mikey P]

tell the whole story and YOU just may win Bawb..

 

[hogjowl]

You will never convince me that POS PLASTIC tool is worth no $530.

It's not.

It's just one more overrated bulletin board tool of the month.

 

[Mikey P]

Says the goober who may clean 3 lazy boys a month.

 

[hogjowl]

I might throw in an ottoman if Liza would make a hole glide for my PMF tool.

 

[bob vawter]

tell the whole story and YOU just may win Bawb..

well it wasn't an upholstery job....
but i WAS using a hand tool..does that count?

 

[T Monahan]

Back in the mid 70's I used a 6" hand stair tool, powered by our Steam Genie truck mount, to 'squirt and suck' a white sofa and chair, some other furniture, as well as the wall to wall carpeting in a home. The invoice then came to $300. Turns out she was an interior designer. I got a call the next day that she was cancelling the check and wanted me to inspect the sofa for yellowing and brown streaks and hues. What a nightmare when I arrived. My jaw dropped and I developed an uncomfortable dread based on its appearance after drying.

Mind you, I was only in my first year of running my own company and thankfully up to that point I was only cleaning Herculon textiles for the most part with this technique. This sofa resembled that to me initially, so that is why I plowed ahead with my aggressive tactics at the time. In reality, my experience then, was obviously limited. I told the woman I would search for a remedy and get back with her the results of my findings. The search led me to Lee Pemperton. (There was no internet in those days. It took a number of phone calls to retrieve this contact) Lee suggested a few things, which I implemented, that led to a fairly respectable result. But not until many attempts, over many days, to bring the natural color back to a even hue. In the end, she never paid me a dime for any of the cleaning. This taught me a life changing lesson.

The experience and aggravation that it cause me, the $300 loss (which for me in those days was like a million dollars), impelled me to get training on what I was claiming I was doing. I made arrangements to got to Pemperton's in PA and took a class. The first class of its kind in the industry that I can recollect. It was less than $300 and only a 5 hour drive back and forth from my home. I was convinced that I needed continuous education. The rest is history.

I was not aware of any low moisture cleaning tools in that era. I did learn some techniques using dry foam and shampoos along the way.

In short order, I did acquire a Murray Kramer type machine after that initial training. (The first of the Cleanrite versions I think)

In summary, I am a proponent of quality education and using the best tools for the project.

Oh yeah, can you say Haitian Cotton?

 

[rwcarpet]

The (really) only time I had an issue with upholstery cleaning was with the first BIG client I landed in 1988. I had pulled down some steady work with Bank One. They had a downtown office building where I cleaned maybe a bazillion office partitions. Well, one weekend, they wanted the bank Presidents office cleaned. In this office, he had a beautiful yellow COTTON couch, with one long 7 foot cushion for the seat. Well, being a relatively new upholstery cleaner, I hosed her down with pre-spray, fired up the Steamway 5000 portable, and let her rip with my 4 inch Steamway upholstery tool. Really cleaned up nice and pretty, smelled great, and the Pres was impressed! (he had stopped by the office to pick up some paperwork). Well, come Monday morning, it still looked great.....only the main cushion was about 6 foot long, short by about 6-8 inches. Either the couch grew, or the cushion shrunk! All I could picture was $$$$ signs to replace this couch. I believe I might have called Jim Pemberton, or someone BIG in this business, for advice. That advice was???......take the cushion, lay it out flat on the floor, make sure no one was around, and roll it up like a sleeping bag-tight! Let it unroll, then re-roll it again in the opposite direction. The idea was to try to stretch out the fibers and maybe, just maybe, stretch some of the shrinkage out of the cushion. Continue until you see results. I was there all night, rolling and un-rolling that damn cushion, trying to stretch it out a bit. It actually did grow it back toward it's original size. I'm not sure what became of that couch. The President moved on, and the couch went into storage. I never heard another word about it, and they continued to use me as their exclusive cleaner.

It was a "near miss".

 

[Buck1955]

The only piece of upholstery I ruined was a white chair with stars and stripes. It was really dirty so I added some Chemspec booster and it caused the red to bleed.

I did learn early on not to put the Liqui-gel bottle in my back pocket. Leaned over with a full bottle and it squirted all over my ass. Burned like crazy, and I'm 2 hours from getting home to shower. Use a clip on tool bag after that.

 

[Mikey P]

Just two more days to get your entries in !!

 

[SamIam]

It's not.

It's just one more overrated bulletin board tool of the month.

I have 2 got them on sale, Love them but I only used a pmf closed tool and a prochem tool before. I loved my PC tool but this is much better. Love the dry times.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Mikey P]

its not a tool for simpletons.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

its not a tool for simpletons.

Then again Simpletons shouldn't attempt upholstery.

 

[SamIam]

I had a tech clean some chairs for me in Oxnard ca. in 1990 to 91

They were Haitian cotton with blue red dyed striped pattern.

He swears he hit it with Haitian powder from Chemspec and it just crocked like mad.

So we brought the chairs in. I proceeded to hit it with all fiber rinse and Haitian powder

separately with a towel and I got a huge color transfer.

So at this point I'm saying to myself "theres nothing more I can do to hurt it worse!"

I figured I already own these might as well try and have some fun, So I take out some

Ultrapac and spray away, I cleaned it in sections, soaking with tlc and rinsing with

Haitain powder charged with all fiber rinse.

Then I packed the whole section I just cleaned with absorb a stain, let it sit tell it

was dry then dry vacuumed the hell out of it

I repeated this process for over a week using over 4 bottles of absorb a stain what a

mess.

After all was said and done they looked 90 percent better and I returned them to the

customer.

Letting Her know that was all I could do, I explained all I had done, and I

understood if she wanted us to keep them.

She smiled and said I hate these things anyway, and I appreciate all you've done!

We went on to clean her carpet several times before I left and moved to Lancaster Ca.

I have yet to see that ugly Haitain with blue and red stripes again but I promise you I

would just say NO!

Lastly color test and if it runs with an acid run or call Jim.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[cleanthis]

I had two tech's go in to clean two rooms but the customer had complaints with the last company that cleaned her home. The problem was they had failed to move the furniture,so I put on the work order all furniture must be moved. So they did a great job cleaning and moving all the furniture... Customer was happy. By the end of the day I get a message to call that customer back. There was a cat nesting inside the frame of the couch and before it had a chance to escape they put the couch down killing this poor little kitty....somebody needed a sofa cleaned so I threw in some deodorizer!!!

 

[Desk Jockey]

There was a cat nesting inside the frame of the couch and before it had a chance to escape they put the couch down killing this poor little kitty....somebody needed a sofa cleaned so I threw in some deodorizer!!!

Winner Winner Chicken uuummm Chinese dinner?

 

[Rob Anspach]

It's was 1993 and I was as green as you can get. I had started in this wonderful world of carpet & upholstery cleaning and was given a crash course in cleaning. Two weeks observing, yep that was my training. So I was sent out to make my claim and be installed as a "professional". Three weeks went by without a hitch. Then it happened. I was called out to clean a 20 foot sectional sofa. I thought cool...no problem...I can handle it. So I show up...and before me was the weirdest looking sofa I had ever encountered. The fabric looked like it was freshly carved into the sofa...and the colors splashed on that morning. I pretested like I was instructed...slight bleed. I called my boss. I described the sofa to my boss and his only concern was how much was I charging. I told him I was unsure and that I recommend not cleaning it. Nope...that wasn't happening...I was to clean it and make sure I brought the money back to the office. Okay I said, sadly disappointed in his decision. I proceeded to clean & extract...no reaction...phew...got through the first section and started on the second one. Then the customer walked in and before I could even say anything she let out a scream that still hurts my ears to this day...the colors bled...and the fabric was starting to pull into itself. I panicked...and called my boss. But it was too late...there was nothing that could be done to fix it. Not only did the company lose a customer, but a $275 sale turned into a $7500 payment for a new sofa.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Was that before you bought the Bane?