Dirty carpets? Consider these words of wisdom from humorist Dave Barry (“Homes and Other Black Holes”): “A small carpet stain where the cat vomited in 1979 can be made to `disappear’ when company comes by having a predetermined family member stand on it and refuse to move.” Or, call Dan McNamee.
A carpet cleaner for 15 years, McNamee is a stain-removal expert. “The worst is red Kool-Aid; it’s not allowed in our house,” says the owner of Schaumburg-based Best Carpet Cleaning. “And, those dog bones with the red dye. The dogs never chew them on the kitchen floor. I know; I have a dog. They chew them on the carpet.”
The solution, says McNamee, is to squirt a red stain remover, available at janitorial supply stores, on the spot. Cover it with an old towel and apply a hot iron. The heat transfers the stain to the towel.
To remove ink, McNamee uses rubbing alcohol. For gum, a citrus-based solvent. Pet urine requires a paper towel tamping, followed by a vinegar and water rinse. Blood vanishes with hydrogen peroxide or a laundry pretreater.
Six days a week, McNamee drives his truck to his first call by 9 a.m. His wife, Bekki, stays home to man the telephone and shuttle their three daughters to activities. She issues prices over the telephone, based on the number of rooms and types of furniture. (He cleans area rugs and upholstered furniture, too.)
“Bekki finds out what major intersections they’re near, and I take it from there,” says McNamee. “I usually recognize street names.”
McNamee usually makes four calls a day. Most of his work is residential, but he cleans some commercial buildings in the evenings. As he crisscrosses the Chicago suburbs, he listens to contemporary rock radio stations in the mornings and WLS’ Roe and Garry in the afternoons. When he can’t stop home for lunch with Bekki, he grabs fast food.
Before McNamee arrives at a customer’s home, Bekki asks the homeowner to move breakables and knickknacks. He moves furniture as he works, leaving plastic squares or Styrofoam blocks under furniture legs.
While McNamee’s truck-mounted system heats water from the home’s outdoor water spigot, he vacuums the rooms. Homeowners prefer his system to portable equipment, he says, because the noise stays outside.
After vacuuming, McNamee sprays a pretreating solution on the carpet with a sprayer powered by the truck.
Pretreating, he says, is the key to effective carpet cleaning. He uses an enzyme-based solution, which is much safer than the more toxic concoctions used 20 years ago. If the carpet has mildew, pet odors or bacteria, McNamee dons a respirator and adds disinfectant to the pretreatment.
After pretreating, McNamee rinses the carpet with 200-degree water blasted at the rate of 400 psi (pounds per square inch) from a stainless-steel wand. The hose that tethers the wand to the truck carries clean water into the house and dirty water back to a tank on the truck. “The hose reaches 200 feet, so the only time I’ve had to move the truck to reach the rest of the house was when I did Walter Payton’s house,” he says.
No amount of cleaning can cure a carpet of spills that have soaked through to the padding or flooring, McNamee tells homeowners. “Sometimes an old dog has had accidents everywhere,” he says. “Then, I can clean and Scotchgard the carpet, but they really need new carpet and padding.”
McNamee says he’s amazed at how much damage homeowners tolerate from their pets. “The little dogs are the worst, because they’re so temperamental,” he says.
The more pets and kids, the dirtier the carpet, says McNamee. “But it also depends on the layout of the house,” he says. “If the front door opens right into the living room carpet, they need it cleaned more often.
“Most of my regular customers call me twice a year. Some have me come once a year whether they need it or not; it’s a rite of spring. Now, my customers are return, including the second generation in some families, and 20 percent referral.”
“Ninety-nine percent of the homes are fairly clean, but I’ve seen it all,” he says. “I did an old shag rug full of every type of bug imaginable; you could hear them go through the hose. I’ve done houses where the pipes froze while people were on vacation and whole houses were water-damaged.”
McNamee’s busiest bouts are before holidays and after floods. “During the 1987 flood, when the phones were out, people left notes on my front door asking for appointments,” he says.
Although the McNamees’ business has grown large enough to employ others, they have elected not to. “Our customers want Dan,” says Bekki. “They say, `Dan is the one who’s coming, right?’ People are careful now about who comes into their homes. But they trust Dan. In fact, a lot of them leave him their keys.”
The downside of remaining a two-person company, says McNamee, is that it’s hard to get away. Their bicycling and skiing vacations are short, so Bekki is never more than a few days away from the telephone.
The upside, say the McNamees, is being available for their daughters’ plays and gymnastics meets.
McNamee hopes to retire someday from this job, which causes frequent back pain despite his daily health-club workouts. In the meantime, the upbeat McNamee says he’s savoring his success, which he defines as having healthy, happy children and being able to pay the bills.
For more information, contact Dan McNamee, Best Carpet Cleaning, 112 Cloverdale Lane, Schaumburg, Ill. 60194. Telephone: 847-882-5774. E-mail: rugsucker@webtv.net.
