Experience with professional carpet/duct cleaning?

[DisneyDebbie]

I'm in the process of cleaning a house to put up for sale. It's mostly hardwood flooring except for 3 bedrooms. The problem I'm facing is that there was cigarette smoking in the house and occasional accidents from a small dog (only in 1 bedroom). Does anyone have experience with Stanley Steamer type service or I've also been looking into ChemDry. I'm looking to have the carpet cleaned, ducts cleaned and possibly a chaise lounge (because I like it and might bring it to my house)

We already have a painter coming in to use an odor block on the walls and ceiling.

Thanks for any help

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Full disclosure you may want to just replace that carpet due to the reason you're needing the service.

We've used Stanley Steamers one time for one room. I can't say that they did the most amazing out there job but can also say it probably wasn't their fault. It was basically something we needed to tear out the carpet in that room and replace it with new and luckily a local store had the same carpet so we could match.

That said our ValPak offers consistently have coupons for them so you might look out for deals. They left us with some carpet deodorizer for pets that we actually found a different brand that did better.

Our cat was peeing on the carpet but something I would tell you is depending on how bad it is with the dog and what Stanley Steamers told us is that urine smell isn't easy to get out. Soaking into the carpet pad makes a cleaning process inefficient and is the reason it didn't work for us. We pulled up the carpet, and took out the carpet pad and put down Shellac on the subfloor(you need to vent the room for a few days after using it), put a new carpet pad and new carpet. It's never smelled after that.

Given that you're dealing with both cigarette smell and assumedly urine those are things that grip to fabric.

Since you're selling the house I almost would just reduce the price enough with the understanding it would be for recarpeting...but that doesn't take care of potentially needing a odor barrier (that's what Shellac was used for) for the dog's accidents in the subfloor.

 

[barkley]

for 3 bedrooms it would'nt cost a fortune to do new carpeting and that's really the only way to get the smell of smoke out (former smoker here). on the duct work I use a local HVAC company b/c they take tremendous care not to mess up the attached system.

any chance there's hardwoods under the carpet in the bedrooms? if so you might look at removing and either (depending on the cost/your anticipated selling price) refinishing or offering a buyer's credit towards refinishing (or carpet if they so desire).