Trying to get your flat ready for the market is scary and full of challenges. Cleaning the carpets was one such challenge I was dreading but which Jordan and Aquarinse Carpet Cleaning Edinburgh made easy. Phew.
Why was I dreading it? I foresaw two significant challenges with the carpet cleaning.
The first concern was that even if the process didn’t go wrong that it would go right differently. Carpets would clean to different colours, the process would be more successful in some parts of the flat, on different levels of dirt and that the result would be a horrible mismatch of colours. If that happened I would have been better off keeping the carpets at their slightly darker tone and not washing them.
My second concern was the furniture. We’re going to have to do the awkward balance of selling the place before buying a new one – you know; because flats are expensive – and even with half of our stuff in storage already there was still plenty of furniture in the flat.
I first thought arranging someone to come in and help clean the carpets would be too expensive so I researched buying a machine or renting one. The problem with renting a carpet washer is that they’re large and hard to move around the city – especially if you don’t have a car. Buying a carpet cleaner was going to be expensive with Amazon, John Lewis and Argos all suggesting a few hundred to nearly a thousand pounds for hardware before buying any of the special chemicals to add to the wash. Neither solution brought any experience, skill or expertise to the challenge.
It was with a degree of desperation that a search online for a trusted, inexpensive, carpet cleaner was undertaken – and I’m glad we found Aquarinse.
I used the booking form on the Aquarinse site and Jordan, the young founder, phoned me back. The price for doing the whole (small) flat with its four different carpets would be £70. That flat fee included help moving the furniture. He’d be around next week; on a bank holiday I had off but a day he was working.
We weren’t ready when Jordan turned up. We were still dismantling an old filing cabinet in the room we needed cleaned first. It was wrong of us to be so poorly prepared but the events of the week had stolen our time. Jordan didn’t panic; he didn’t even break his stride and took our situation in hand. I was very thankful.
In the end we only moved the furniture around in the living room. We didn’t; he did, that’s to say. Little squares of cleverly lined paper were placed back under the feet of the furniture so not to immediately ruin the fresh clean. He used the long “wand” of the cleaner to reach around the furniture in the other rooms. I don’t think those parts of the carpet had ever been walked on anyway so probably didn’t need much of a clean.
We’re up on the fourth floor in a tenement block with no elevator. Thankfully all the kit Aquarinse brought could be carried up and down the stairs. The cleaner, I think, was a bit like this machine on Amazon but larger, yellow and with more compartments.
Full marks for a friendly and professional service but there’s still a big question to answer – did we get clean carpets?
We did. There was no magical transformation but the before and after colour of the carpets was easy to spot. It was especially obvious during the clean when you could compare and contrast easily. It took a little longer than expected for the carpets to fully dry – perhaps overnight rather than just in a few hours but it was a cold day.
These are not our carpets but you can see some of the differences on old tweets from the @Aquarinse87 account.
Aquarinse carpet cleaning Edinburgh. Soiled liviving room carpet from dogs. http://t.co/8w0c6Csfn0 pic.twitter.com/4u0mcuUIVp
— AR Carpet Cleaning (@Aquarinse87) February 25, 2015
Overall? Very happy we found Jordan and Aquarinse. The service is cheaper than buying a carpet cleaner or carpet washer for just a few uses and you get expertise with the service. Recommended.
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