Capital Carpet & Services

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I won a $300 gift certificate to Capital Carpet Care.  The local realtor that awarded the certificate told me that she had had her carpets cleaned by Capital and was very happy with the results and the price ($150 for her whole home, I believe).  I was surprised when making my appointment.  I described the very small areas (one standard stairway, one small hallway, and just the exposed areas of three small bedrooms)  I needed cleaned and was given a price of $210.  I think the price may been high since I was using a gift certificate.  Capital showed up on 3/25 and proceeded to clean the bedrooms, the hallway, and my stairs.  As Capital's employee was cleaning my stairs, he was on his cell phone with personal calls.  Upon completion, my carpet seemed cleaner but I did have to clean up a large wet area that was left behind on my hardwood floors.  I was told that the carpeting should be dry in 3-4 hours.  My upstairs carpet dried in about 6 hours but my stairs were saturated and were still damp 24 hours later.  On 3/26, I got a look at my stairs as the morning sun shone in and I was horrified to find that my off-white carpeting was streaked with yellow stains and every single stair had a big yellow water stain where the step met the riser.  I called Capital and they sent someone out to look at the damage.  A man arrived and looked at my steps.  He apologized and tried to tell me that the stains must have been there previously.  My husband has owned this home for fifteen years and those stains were never there before.  The man proceeded to perform a second cleaning on the stairs and on a couple of spots upstairs where new stains had appeared.  Again, I was told that the carpet would be dry in 3-4 hours.  The next day, the stains were less pronounced but still highly visible and the stair carpeting was still wet.  I spoke with someone at Capital and they assured me that they would speak with the owner and call me back that day to resolve the issue.  I never heard from anyone.  It's been a week and I have been left with ruined carpeting and no answers.  I hope that other Angie's List users are able to read this review and exercise caution when hiring a carpet care company.  I feel that Capital overcharged for the "cleaning" that they performed and unfortunately, they are now going to cost us many hundreds of dollars as we will have to replace the carpeting or pull up the carpet that they ruined and pay someone to finish our steps.  
This is my first Angie's List review and I have not learned how to attach photographs but I have do have a number of photographs that show the damage left by Capital Carpet Care.

They did a great job.

They are a very good firm.  They can do upholstery cleaning if we ask them, but we haven't asked them to do that.  They are prompt.  They are very courteous.  They will move the furniture.  They will get every stain to come up.  They are just good. 

I could not have been more pleased. The crew was friendly, professional, thorough, and efficient. They showed me what they were doing, and explained the equipment that they were using, and gave me lots of hints about carpet care. They explained the chemicals that they were using, compared them to consumer chemicals, and told me how I could obtain the same spot cleaner that they used (they even left me with a starter supply of their spot cleaner to use should I need it later on). They gave me plastic booties to wear, and after each room was cleaned, we went back over the room, searching for spots that might have been missed or incompletely cleaned. There weren't very many because as they were steaming the carpet, the crew pointed out spots to each other (even tiny spots, such as a single discolored fiber) for separate treatment. We walked each room several times, searching for areas that required hand treatment. After each room was steamed and examined, they used a carpet rake to loosen the fibers so that the carpet would dry more uniformly and the colors between faded and unfaded areas would blend more evenly. One of the comment the crew made to me was "We want you to be happy --- we take pride in our work", and indeed they did! I have already told everyone I know about my excellent experience. Highly recommended! Note - the company is relocating their offices to a newer building, and they might be a bit difficult to contact for a few days, but keep trying --- it will be worth the effort!