How to tackle a car cleaning that keeps coming back to haunt you?
If you’re one of the millions of Australians who’ve been plagued by the smell of old carpet or hardwood flooring in the home, this article might help.
It sounds like a joke, but if you live in the Sydney suburbs, you might not be surprised by what’s causing your house to smell like a carpet cleaner.
According to the National Consumer and Business Council, there are more than a billion carpet cleaners operating in Australia.
They’re also known as “corrosive carpet cleaners” or “deadwood cleaners”, because they can’t get rid of their unwanted debris by cleaning up by hand.
“They can be a real nuisance, but they’re not a health hazard,” says Dr Paul MacLean from the Sydney Cleaning Institute.
“If you’ve got a carpet cleaning service coming in, they might come in and clean it out, but that’s not good enough.”
The cleaner has to be able to do it in a way that’s non-hazardous.
“It’s not something to be embarrassed about.”
MacLean says carpet cleaning services in the city and rural areas tend to focus on areas where people are often home, where carpet cleaning isn’t a regular practice.
“There’s a lot of people who are home-based, who may have a car, who don’t have the time to clean it,” he says.
“So there’s a significant opportunity for carpet cleaners to take on a more general cleaning role.”
Dr MacLean says it’s difficult to make a concrete case for carpet cleaning, but the industry is a lot bigger than just cleaning carpets.
“It’s a huge industry, and there’s not a lot that we can say about how many carpet cleaners there are, but I can say that carpet cleaning has increased over the last 20 years,” he said.
“I think that’s likely a reflection of the rise of the internet.”
In addition to carpet cleaning being a growing industry, the cleaning industry has also experienced a boom in the last few years.
While the industry has grown, it’s still growing.
The number of carpet cleaning companies has risen from about 3,000 in the 1980s to about 35,000 today, says Dr MacLean.
“People are doing their own cleaning, and they’re doing it at home,” he explained.
“But they’re also working in more complex situations where they need to clean up a lot more, so they’ve got more work to do.”
Dr MacDonald says the carpet cleaning industry is not the only way for carpet cleaner to get a foot in the door.
“When you’re living in the urban environment, you’re often the only person who’s going to get dirty carpets, so carpet cleaners can be an easy way for a person to get that foot in that door,” he added.
“That can then then lead to other areas of their life where they can make a real difference.”
For more information on the Cleaner’s Manual: