Some Customers Suck

The Soul-Crushing Reality About My Clients

Carpet Cleaning Taught Me a Lot About Shitty People

I started cleaning carpets for a living back in 1986. Yep, 37 years ago, I became gainfully employed doing back-breaking hard labor at age 11.

No, I didn’t live in Russia or work at a sweatshop in Thailand. Bend, Oregon was the scene of child labor laws being violated. My father had been a professional carpet cleaner for a few years and decided I was finally decently sized and reasonably intelligent enough to be trusted to work with him.

He had a round Electrolux professional vacuum that looked a bit like R2D2 from Star Wars. That thing really pulled all of the loose junk out of the carpet before he’d use his trusty Von Schrader machine for the actual carpet cleaning. I’d go out, empty the Electrolux, and wait for him to finish each room, following him with a carpet rake to fluff up the carpet.

Yep, I was an 11-year-old fluffer. Not as bad as it actually sounds. I usually earned $5 per job unless it was a huge house, then I’d get 10 bucks. Solid money for a 6th grader who enjoyed working with his dad.

I got back into the business as an adult in 2010. The real estate market had taken a shit and I needed to do some side hustle work to keep busy between the ever-decreasing closings I had. I’d gone from closing 25 to 30 homes a year to closing about six to ten. I needed to keep busier than that.

I’ve always been a hard worker. I couldn’t just sit around waiting for the next real estate client. It’s not in my nature to be comfortable moving at a snail’s pace. Carpet cleaning was an excellent side business.

I’d make $50 to $75 an hour doing it. I had a large local social media following for real estate and the funny little jokes I’d write and post. That was easy to transition over to a small family-owned carpet cleaning business.

Starting as a physically fit 36-year-old man, I had no idea the toll it would take on my body, specifically my lower back. I’m laying on an ice pack as I write this, waiting for 12:30 pm to roll around for my weekly chiropractor visit.

A dozen years and 2000 jobs later, my lower back hates me for not selling more homes back in 2010.

During the years I’ve helped over 2000 clients, I’ve observed some things about human nature and shitty behavior. Fortunately, these occurrences have been few and far between. But boy, some of them sure stand out.

I’ve only had perhaps twenty people complain about their results. That means I had approximately a 99% customer satisfaction rate. Most clients were genuinely wonderful and appreciative of the hard work I did.

But that 1% could be a real bitch.

I was good at explaining expectations upfront. I learned to educate my clients about worn carpet fibers and high-traffic areas. Worn fibers just look dingy by nature. You cannot expect the areas you’ve walked on the most to respond to cleaning as well as the brand-new fibers that live under your couch.

This isn’t Jesus Christ Carpet Cleaning. You can’t raise worn fibers from the dead, like Lazarus.

Most people understood this. A few nodded and said, “Uh-huh…”, but I could tell the hamster wheel inside their head needed oiling. Or a new hamster.

Ditto about Kool-Aid stains. Or anything colorful that was spilled on their carpet and wasn’t treated at the time the spill occurred. Funny how that works when you make a mess and don’t do anything about it right when it happens.

Colorful things have dyes in them. So I had to explain that we clean carpet, but we don’t dye carpet to match its original color before Kool-Aid Man busted through your wall yelling, “OH YEAHHHHHH!”

Again, most clients understood this. People tended to realize that the better the shape their carpet was in when we started, the better it was going to look after we cleaned it. A few nodded their heads while staring into space.

“Uh-huh…”

So explaining what to expect up front was crucial to the process. Otherwise, I’d likely have had more clients complaining about their results. I was astounded to find out how dirty some people allowed their carpets to get. It was almost as if they’d never been told that vacuuming weekly was a good idea.

I’m fairly sure that a few didn’t even own a vacuum cleaner. I burned through at least four or five of my own during a decade in the business. A few sounded like I was vacuuming a sandbox before starting the actual carpet cleaning.

The worst clients were real estate agents. I helped at least 150 of them locally. I had been one myself for several years, so I was connected to quite a few in the area. Most were wonderful, but a few were truly terrible people. I have stories that could make your head spin.

I also ran into some interesting things in people’s homes when doing carpet cleaning. I recall vacuuming near a bed once and having a large and I do mean LARGE rubber dildo roll out from under it.

Ok, let’s kick ol’ Thickie back under the bed and burn my right shoe after the job.

I once vacuumed near a dresser and thought I saw it move in an odd way. Hmm, must be seeing things. Then suddenly, the drawer opened and the biggest cat I’ve ever seen jumped out, ran, and scared the living shit out of me. I had to laugh at that one. My Bride felt the need to document that on Facebook:

12 years later, she’s still this big of a smartass.

Then there are the pothead clients. I saw a pipe and some shake in the bathroom of one place. I once was tipped $50 on a $100 job by a kind hippie who tokin’ up in his garage while I was cleaning three rooms. And that fat nug I saw sitting on a desk in broad daylight.

Responsible citizen that I was, I confiscated it and disposed of it. In a series of small fires.

Ok, I kid. I never stole from a client. Never let it be said that I wouldn’t look the other way when seeing anything weed-related. I’ve seen pipes, bongs, grinders, and even a giant hookah in a closet. Smoke ’em if ya got ’em.

Most clients were cool as hell. Some of the biggest tips I received were from people having the smallest, oldest homes. While some well-to-do clients gave generous tips, I was also stiffed by far more people in exclusive neighborhoods than those in modest homes or even apartments.

It all goes back to my “One Outta Two” philosophy I’ve taught my children about people in general. Statistically, every other person you meet in life is a douchebag. Don’t assume people are going to automatically treat you well. Especially if you’re working a service job.

This holds true for some of my past clients. And even the occasional hidden cat. Take it from a now-retired professional carpet cleaner. &:^)

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