People have been known to remove sofa and chair cushion covers and wash them in a
washing machine. “That’s the reason for the zipper is on the back of the cushion,” they
think. Then they find it impossible to get the covers back on the cushions, or that the fabric
texture has somehow changed, or that the colors have been altered, never to match the frame
fabric again.

No. The reason for the zipper is to make cushion covers fit more perfectly. In fact, some
manufacturers staple cushion-cover zippers shut permanen7tly.
Cleaning agents designed for washing machines often contain chemical additives that upholstery
cleaners do not contain. These differences can produce fabric appearance differences
as well.

Upholstery fabrics sometimes contain fiber blends (such as rayon and cotton) that furniture
labels don’t explain. The rayon content is almost certain to cause shrinkage when
washed in water.

Both cushion and frame fabric on upholstered furniture should be cleaned by the same
method after testing for shrinkage and color fastness. It’s advisable to leave the task to a
trained, certified professional. Doing so could easily prove far less expensive.

Manage your home environment for good!

I get calls all the time from people in a hurry. “My mother-in-law is coming, and my carpet is in terrible shape. Can you come clean it this week?” Or, “I’m tired of looking at this mess. Can you clean my carpet in the next day or two?”

With children and school, band and football practice, dental and doctor appointments, life can turn into a rat-race. Just not enough time to get it all done. Management? What management? The squeaking wheel gets the grease. The problem is, the soil that’s building up on your floors and furniture doesn’t make a sound, … until one day you look down and the very ugly truth screams!!! at you.

But then there’s another problem: The gradual soil buildup is also gradually damaging your furnishings, gradually downgrading the appearance of your home, and gradually increasing the threats to your family’s health. So, what’s the answer? “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” I’ve heard, which stresses another fact: For carpet soil damage, there is no cure, save replacing it. And save for the cost of your home, your carpeting is probably the most expensive thing you have in it, which leaves us with the ounce of prevention:

More and more people are seeing the wisdom in planned management—pre-scheduled, periodic cleaning. Advanced scheduling prevents excessive carpet damage, keeps it looking beautiful, and helps to keep your home sanitary, which makes a lot of sense.

“But I don’t know how often my furnishings will need cleaning. And how am I to know what’s going to come up, what day would be best? And, frankly, I don’t know that I want to obligate myself.”

These are not problems. 1) You’re not obligated. A week or two before your cleaning appointment, I’ll call you to confirm it. If some-thing has come up, you can reschedule. The advantage is that, having the time held out for you, I have the date-space to juggle appointments to meet your needs. But if you call on the spur of the moment, there’s no space to juggle. Instead, we’ve got disappointment and frustration. 2) As for how often you should clean, that’s obviously your decision to make. In my newsletters, I’ll be giving you tips on ways to avoid excessive contamination, ways to keep your furnishings clean longer. But, from home to home, there are many variables …

• How careful people are with foodstuffs
• Number of people living in the home
• Whether they wear street shoes on their carpet
• Pet ‘bathroom’ habits
• How frequently and thoroughly people vacuum

And the variables mentioned above will determine how many months that will take. Basing my cleaning recommendations on what I see in the average home where few precautions are taken, I would recommend cleaning high traffic areas about every six months. Yet, in homes with small children, that could be stretching it a bit. Regardless, all we really need to do is decide on a time frame. And, when the time comes, we can work out the details.

The point is, we can make your life easier by helping you avoid the last-minute hassle, as well as the panic and frustration that come with it. So, give planned home maintenance some thought. You can live healthier, while you add years of additional life and beauty to your carpeting. People who don’t plan ahead usually buy the carpeting they want; then love it for two years, and hate it for eight. For lack of foresight, they ruin it. A sixty second phone call can solve this problem once and for all.

When you’re shopping for carpet and the carpet salesperson begins to stress that a given carpet has a 10-Year Wear Warranty!!! — you should perhaps begin to question how honest he as been with everything he’s told you.

Oh, the carpet may well have such a warranty. The problem is that the salesperson may also be trying to trade upon a very common, consumer misunderstanding. You see, many people think that the word ‘wear’ in the warranty has to do with carpet performance—that it will keep its pleasing appearance for 10 years, … won’t pack down or ‘ugly out’ for the life of the warranty.

Not so!

The fact is that wear warranties have very little if anything whatever to do with a carpet’s long-term appearance or with wear as most consumers define the word.

All a wear warranty guarantees is that no more than 10% of the yarn will ‘wear away’ for the life of the warranty. Nothing more. The pile can pack, fray, gnarl, … ‘ugly out’ in every conceivable way, but none of these problems are covered by this warranty type. If you want a warranty that covers appearance, then you want a ‘performance warranty.’ But you should read it to learn what it covers.

We Care!!! Continue to call and we’ll continue to prove it. 770-917-9400

Some years ago, a dietician made a comment that became somewhat popularized: “You are what you eat.” It seems to me that it would be more accurate to say that our physical condition is the result of what we consume through our mouths, our lungs, and our skin. Every aspect of our environments impacts us, not just the content of our refrigerators. The problem is, while we may reduce our saturated fat intake, we often don’t think about the toxins in our homes or what they may be doing to us. Busy with all the demands on our time, we don’t notice that our floors and furniture are accumulating contaminants.

Yes. Contaminants is the right word, because contaminants are what is building up day after day. The problem is that we don’t see our soiled furnishing as ‘contaminated,’ which is the reason—according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—that we have to spend so much on healthcare. Pollution is coming into our homes but we’re not cleaning it out. Dr. Michael Berry, a deputy director in the EPA, says that we “spend no more than .05% of our income on cleaning.” (It was reported on the news that we spend 1.3 trillion dollars yearly on healthcare.)

I know that Dr. Berry is right, because most people who call us for service haven’t had their carpets cleaned in years—anywhere from 3 to 6 years, as a matter of fact. Occasionally, we get calls from people who haven’t cleaned them in a decade.

I was talking with a professional friend a while back. He told me about an experience with one of his customers that explains why many people don’t clean nearly as often as they should: It seems that a lady called to ask him to meet her at a pre-owned home she had purchased. “I’d like you to help me evaluate the condition of the carpeting. I don’t know if it needs cleaning or not,” she said.

As they walked around from room to room, the lady suddenly commented, “I don’t think the car-pet is too bad, but I still want it cleaned. If it were my dirt, I wouldn’t worry about it.” What was she saying, “My dirt is cleaner than your dirt?” She clearly had no idea what ‘my dirt’ contains, to say nothing of the health threats in it.
I came across an article published by Consumer- Oriented Publications that I found to be a real eye-opener. So, I got their permission to share part of the article with you:

Ultra-Common Contaminants in Floor Soils

Organic Contaminants

• Soot (from vehicle emissions)
• Asphalt residue (from streets/parking lots)
• Motor oil plus chemical additives (from streets/ parking lots)
• Residues from industrial gases, containing many contaminants
• Oils (from cooking vapors, human and animal skin and hair)
• Cleaning chemical residue, various types
• Lawn fertilizer
• Insecticides
• Herbicides
• Fungicides

Inorganic Contaminants

• Arsenic
• Cadmium
• Chromium
• Nickel
• Lead
• Mercury

Biological Contaminants

• Hair, human and animal
• Skin cells, from people and pets
• Food crumbs
• Beverage spills of all sorts (milk, cola drinks, fruit juices)
• Insect fragments and excrement
• Pet excretions, which contain E. Coli bacteria
• Regurgitation, both animal and human
• Cat and dog saliva
• Pollen
• Bacteria
• Mold spores
• Viruses
• Dust mites and excrement

*Many organic and inorganic contaminants found in the home are either known to be or are known to con-tain carcinogenic substances.

“Indoor environmental problems cause more widespread health problems than all the out-door environmental problems put together.” James M. Seltzer, MD; Journal of HealthCare Design

Immediately after service, people are delighted to have their carpets fresh and clean again. But, in a few days, all is back to normal, and their freshly cleaned carpeting is forgotten.

However, just as sure tomorrow comes, so will the day when you’ll be looking down at soiled carpeting again.

Wouldn’t it be nice, when that tomorrow comes, if we owed you?

Would you like to have a beautiful discount on your next cleaning? How beautiful?!

You can write your own discount. You can make it as ‘pretty’ as you like. All you have to do is tell your friends, neighbors, family, people you know at work about our superior service. The first time each referral uses our services, we will give you 10% off your next cleaning.

The total of all your certificates will be deducted from your cleaning charge. This way, you can keep your carpeting looking beautiful very economically.

Contact Shure Clean Carpet Systems today! (770) 917-9400