Crazy carpet cleaner

We had a very non-exciting Christmas. It was quiet and we had boatloads of snow. I have been working from about 7 am to 3 am every day for about two weeks to get the house ready to sell just after Christmas. I worked up until 5am Christmas day. Pretty much took Christmas off to make sure the kids didn't feel like we glossed over Christmas. They opened their gifts, and were Sooooo excited to finally get the pillow pets they have been asking for awhile now. We went to see the Rapunzel Tangeled movie, which the kids loved. While the kids were playing with their toys in the evening, down came the tree and all the decorations. I was surprised that they didn't really care. Aric and I moved furniture around and I started painting more walls that night after the kids were asleep of course. I tried painting while they were awake on e and that didn't go over too well. Mady has a way of getting into things she shouldn't and started painting walls the wrong color. My budding Picasso.

My favorite, or least favorite, story, how ever you want to put it, was when the carpet guy came to clean the house. He shows up, and he looks like he is about 70 ( later tells me is 64- keep reading..). Now in Minnesota, everyone takes their shoes off when you walk into someone's house, or the service guy will put on clean booties over their shoes. Apparently not this carpet guy. Not only does he not take off his shoes, but tracks snow all over the house. It was almost painful for me not to point out the fact that he still has his shoes on, and there's snow everywhere. Whatever, he's making his job harder. He starts cleaning and I notice that the is using a rug doctor. A RUG DOCTOR people. You can rent one at Walmart for like $20. Now I have a bad feeling. But then I think, ok, maybe this is a commercial cleaner for professionals. No, I know what a professional steam cleaner looks like and this isn't it.

So after he does the top floor in about twenty minutes, I go and review the stellar job he did. Our carpet is only a few years old, so I just
want to give it that brand new look to it, it's not really dirty, but boy did he not only do a super crappy job, but when I ask him to go over the stains again he breaks out the target brand carpet spray to remove stains. Awesome. Then he gouges my VERY freshly painted walls. I hear my kitchen sink running and him moving my dishes around in the sink. A little weird. He rinsed out his dirty water in the sink. Use the bathtub, or as me where he should pour filthy water out. I am fuming at this point. What to do? I call my realtor, who talks to the guy. This only made it worse. While he's finishing his crappy job, I call my neighbor and ask him to call me make in a half an hour to make sure we are still alive. This guy is putting out some scary vibes, and if he was younger, I would be thinking serial killer. He is not happy to go back over his work, if you can call it that. So, he knocks off $30 off the bill because he knows I'm not pleased. I went over many of the stains that I was hoping he would do( while he was there) and it came out no problem, if he actually did his job, he wouldn't have had any issues. Due to his age alone I would have happily paid him full price if he would have been a nice person. But alas, did I mention he was probably a retired serial killer?? So after he hands me the bill, I tell him there is no way I'm going to pay this amount. I'm kinda shaking at this point because he starts yelling at me. I tell him that I though he had professional steam cleaning equipment and that he was being slightly dishonest. He says he was yelling at another guy who had the same problem ( really?? Someone else had a problem with his work?). I would expect this level of quality work from my four year old. He yells at me again, when I'm trying to calmly tell him his job is unacceptable for the price in a nice way. I am not good with confrontation. I finally stood up for what I knew was right. I also showed him 3 of the gouges in my walls, and he just said that he wasn't perfect, and it happens. He finally said pay him whatever I feel was acceptable. $30 wasn't even acceptable. I paid him $80 so that he wouldn't try to break my windows. I was shaking so bad as i was writing the check. As he was leaving I opened the garage so that he wouldn't try to back into it. I thankfully had a baseball bat of Aric's that I needed to put away in the garage, so I picked it up and pretended to look for a place to put it. If I knew what a panic attack was, I would say I was probably having one. I was so glad he was gone! I don't remember being afraid for my life before. I made sure all my kids were accounted for before he left. Scary dude!

So when Aric came home I told him what happened and he called the guy. He was so rude to Aric, which was surprising because Aric is good with crazy people like that. Aric just said he didn't care what kind of job was done, but that you shouldn't yell at clients. So what does this guy do? He yells at Aric and hangs up on him!! Wow! I bet he gets alot of return customers with his top notch customer service. Awesome.

So irregardless of the carpet job that was done ( my Kirby vacuum does a better job), we had two showings today. We heard back from one of the realtors. All positive. They loved it. They were looking at houses for their son and his family that will be in town in two weeks, and that they hope it is still available. Yeah!! So hopefully all of my many late nights will have paid off. I just hope someone will love our house as much as we do.