Lisa in Tampa (8/4) and Atlanta (8/7)

July 30, 2009 — therugchick

Next week David Brinkley and I are taking the Piranha Rugs & Restoration Road Show to Tampa (Tuesday) and Atlanta (Friday). Seats are selling like hotcakes, hush puppies, or whatever it is y’all eat down south. :)

I’ll be covering rug cleaning do’s and don’t's, the rugs to run from, how to handle rugs in floods and fires, and how to generate restoration work through your rug cleaning channels. I have more material than time, so you are guaranteed to have your brain full after we have this workshop together!

Register at Rugs & Restoration Roadshow or call us at (800) 275-2643 – I look forward to meeting you!

- Lisa

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Stop Making Waves…

July 30, 2009 — therugchick

Rugs are meant to be on a HARD surface.

But, for some reason, Americans love to put their rugs over SOFT surfaces. I’m not sure why. Probably the same reason they jump on their beds – because it’s BOUNCY! :)

There are ramifications to the rugs though, when weight is placed on a pliable rug. A lot of foot traffic, or heavy furniture, will bend and stretch the foundation fibers of a woven rug, especially if it is not tightly woven.

If you can picture a stretched out sweater, and trying to get it back into its original shape, you can have a sense of the situation I’m talking about. It loses its shape.

When the rug is tufted (with a latex backing) the problem can be magnified if the rug does not have a solid foundation floor underneath it.  Just take a look at this rug due to heavy furniture over years:

Tufted rug + heavy furniture + carpeting underneath = RUG MESS!

Tufted rug + heavy furniture + carpeting underneath = RUG MESS!

This problem here is not reversible. You may be able to get it to find its flat shape again with a wash AND putting it onto a hard floor to get trampled back to a flatter version of itself.  It might get better, but it won’t be new again.

For a tufted rug to lose its shape, well, I won’t lose sleep over that. Tufted rugs are quick made “real” rug knock-offs. They are commodities.

But a handwoven oriental or occidental rug, something that took months, or a year to weave, that is a real loss.  It’s a piece of someone’s life on the floor, and if placed over a very soft floor with any furniture on it, you are causing damage to the rug.  It might be slight, or it might be severe. Either way you should do something about it.

One answer is of course move it to a hard floor. Another answer would be to get a sturdy pad for under the rug (you need to try a few to find the right one for your setting).

Waves are not only a sign of a rug problem, they are also a safety concern.  So take a look at your rugs and see if any adjustments need to be made.  It’s good for the rugs, and good for you too.

- Lisa

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Let's Get Tipsy!

July 28, 2009 — therugchick

When you get a rug in, you need to take a look at the TIPS of the face fibers.  Why? Because the tips can tell you a story.

Such as … is the rug faded by the sun?

Tips of Chinese rug fibers have faded to beige from pink due to sun.

Tips of Chinese rug fibers have faded to beige from pink due to sun.

Sometimes the rug is a bit soiled, and you can’t see the difference from front to back in the color loss, so you need to grin open the fibers to see if the BASE of the fiber is darker than the tips. Like this:

Grin open the fibers to see if the base of the fibers are darker.

Grin open the fibers to see if the base of the fibers are darker.

If the TIPS are lighter – then you can explain to the rug’s owner that the rug has had some sun fade. Show her the difference so there are no surprises once the rug is clean.

But what if the tips are DARKER at the top?  That, my friend, is a problem!

Look at this rug:

Signs of a disaster, if you are not careful....

Signs of a disaster, if you are not careful....

With this rug, if you do not have a very attentive eye in your pre-inspection process, you may look at it, think you know what kind of rug it is, and move ahead with cleaning.

What you might miss is that this rug has been OVER-dyed with ink.

The rug was chemically stripped of its original colors, and then painted with ink to make it another color palette.  And though you usually can stabilize DYES in a rug for cleaning, you cannot stabilize INK. 

Take a look here in the middle large medallion and tell me what you can see?

Base of the fibers are light BLUE - the tips are dark PURPLE!

Base of the fibers are light BLUE - the tips are dark PURPLE!

When we grinned these fibers, this was a warning sign – inconsistent colors from back to front, and inconsistencies from the base of the fibers to the tips.

In fact, with this rug, you could take a DRY TOWEL and wipe the front of this rug and ink would transfer on to that dry towel.  If this rug was in a home over carpeting, the ink would literally walk off on to the carpeting, and be next to impossible to remove.  And if you get this rug wet, all that ink would create one big dark pool of stains you’d never be able to remove either.

Not being “tipsy” with your rugs you could miss a sign like this, and end up buying a rug.  Which is why I preach that the most valuable skill you can ever hone in the rug cleaning world is your pre-inspection skills. 

Keep an eye out, and you can avoid the client buy out.

- Lisa

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The Incredibly Shrinking Rugs!!!

July 24, 2009 — therugchick

Rugs do shrink.  Some slight – a fraction of an inch … some a lot – inches. Usually on their very first wash IF they have not been washed after being woven (good rug manufacturers generally wash their rugs after weaving is done).

How much will they shrink? This depends.  You have to think about it as you would brand new clothing, that first wash will make it a bit smaller, but if you do a gentle cool clean, and easy dry, it’s less shrinking than if you hot water and hot dry the piece.

But with a woven rug, any shrinking will be slight.  (FYI – a WOVEN rug is a rug that you can see the design on the back that matches the front.)

There is an exception to the “slight” rule though … and this is tribal rugs woven on a WOOL foundation, and in particular Afghan wool on wool rugs.  Like this:

Corner of an Afghan rug - wool knots wrapped around wool foundation.

Corner of an Afghan rug - wool knots wrapped around wool foundation.

With this rug, the wool face fibers are wrapped around wool warps and wefts as opposed to cotton warps and wefts.

Cotton is generally the foundation fiber of choice, because it provides a consistent twist throughout, and helps create a rug that will lay flatter in the floor.  Wool, has a lot of give to it.  Just think of  a wool sweater, and how you can stretch it when you need to, or it can sometimes shrink up a bit.  It does not keep it’s consistent shape as cotton would when laid out wet to dry.

Because of the war-torn conditions of Afghanistan, for decades there have been rugs not necessarily created under ideal quality control conditions. And this can lead to some of the rug product in contemporary Afghanistan to shrink more than would be deemed acceptable.

I actually had the owner of an Afghan restaurant try to convince me that washing a rug should never happen because it damages rugs. I had to correct him that rugs properly woven with quality fibers, dyes, and construction can be washed throughout its 100 or more years and not have damage from cleaning. (Honestly, NOT cleaning it and leaving abrasive dirt in the fibers will cut the face fibers and cause more damage that way. Cleaning is the best thing you can do for your rug because it removes this grit.)

With some Afghani rugs, however, a wash can mean a release of dyes not properly rinsed before being woven into a rug, and it can mean some buckling and shrinking or stretching of wool fibers with different tensions and twists.

Luckily for you, the worst of the possible dangerous rugs to clean from this region will show you warning signs. Sometimes slight, like this one where the edges and ends show definite variations in width and length:

Rug is NOT symmetrical - wavy along all edges.

Rug is NOT symmetrical - wavy along all edges.

Sometimes the warning signs are so strong – you need to make the decision to only surface clean the rug because immersing it in a bath will risk making the rug shape even worse.  This rug is an enormous “don’t wash me” sign:

End is buckled from a poorly executed weave, and it will get worse with a wash.

End is buckled from a poorly executed weave, and it will get worse with a wash.

With rugs like these, you do need to get a release of liability if the owner insists on having it cleaned. Photo documentation that this rug was NEVER perfectly square, and never laid flat on the floor, would also be helpful.

Sometimes these rugs can be stretched to a certain extent on a stretching floor to help loosen up the shape.  You can also tack out the rug and clean with a hand tool so that you can control the potential of shrinking.  However, these problems are WEAVING characteristics and not the result of improper cleaning.  There is literally only so much you can do.  You cannot undo a bad weave, or inconsistent tension.  All you can do is try to control the shape so that it does not become worse when cleaning.

The key here is to closely inspect the rug, and catch the warning signs BEFORE you clean the rug. Point out the characteristics of the rug to the client.  (Everyone repeat after me!) When it is communicated before the wash, it is EDUCATION – when it is communicated after the wash, it is an EXCUSE.

Rugs from contemporary Afghanistan can be a wash challenge.  Just keep an eye out for the signs.

- Lisa

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What's Lurking Beneath The Dirt???

July 21, 2009 — therugchick

That’s a really good question.  I mean, take a look at this rug right here:

Filthy rug may be hiding SECRET DANGERS!

Filthy rug may be hiding SECRET DANGERS!

What could be lurking here? Plenty of pre-existing dangers – old stains, old dye migration, old repairs, abrash, sunfade.

You could be the BEST rug care specialist in your city, and yet with this rug, you could be unable to catch any of these items above in your pre-inspection.  Why?  Because the rug is friggin’ FILTHY!

Couple things to point out – one is, when someone allows their rug to get really dirty, they don’t care about it.  They are putting off cleaning it because they don’t especially enjoy paying to have it cleaned. They don’t realize that the abrasive soil is cutting the fibers of this silk rug and is causing it to prematurely wear down.

People often falsely say that cleaning a rug causes damage – when actually NOT cleaning it causes damage.   Think about a little bit of sand and grit getting into the bottom of your shoe, and how that pokes, scratches, and hurts over time.  Put that grit into a rug that is walked on day in and day out, and can you imagine that on wool or silk fibers? Of course it causes damage.

If you have the rug improperly cleaned, for examples having a wool or silk rug steam cleaned at high heat – I’ll grant you that this cleaning would in fact damage the rug more than help it.  But properly cleaning – a wash – of a well made rug with strong dyes only helps it to last longer.

But back to the filthy rug.  What if this level of dirt was on top of this rug right here?

Red dye has bled on the top side of this rug only from an old spill.

Red dye has bled on the top side of this rug only from an old spill.

If this rug was caked with dark gray soil as the rug at the beginning of the post is, you would likely not be able to see this damage until the rug was clean and it stuck out like a sore thumb.  Then the rug’s owner might incorrectly believe you created the damage with your wash.

(One tip for you – if your wash process has bled a rug, then it will have bled it ALL over the rug, and not just in one small isolated area. If you’ve made an error, it will show up throughout the rug.)

If a rug is heavily soiled, it is not within your power to do a proper pre-inspection.  That’s like having you do a home inspection but locking the door and not allowing you inside.  You cannot SEE the conditions.

This means a comment needs to be placed on the invoice that states “Due to extreme soiling, I am unable to note any pre-existing stains, dye migration, sunfade, or discolorations on this rug. I will use extreme care in cleaning this rug, but cannot be held responsible for any pre-existing conditions uncovered by my thorough cleaning process.”

If the rug owner refuses to release you from liability on this point, then I’d suggest you turn the job away. Clearly they have something to hide – literally. And rug owners who allow their rugs to get this soiled do not appreciate “clean” and do not appreciate those in the cleaning profession.

They tend to be the most demanding customers who will criticize the price, the turnaround time, and the results. Why? Because they resent the fact that they have to pay someone to clean up their dirt.

Clients who value clean, and strive for a healthy home, glady hire skilled professionals to deliver that service to their homes and their rugs. It is part of their routine to provide the best environment for themselves, their families, and their household investments from their flooring to their textiles.

It’s true that sometimes a homeowner may slip and let something get dirtier than they should have. How you’ll know if they are a good client to have will be how they respond to your waiver for a heavily soiled rug.  If the response is “of course, no problem” – the customer is a keeper.

If the answer is “no way” – then you need to thank them for letting you know that they are not someone you want to invest any time and effort into.  You can politely refer them to someone else, and thank them for keeping you from getting a nightmare customer-induced migraine.

- Lisa

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Hitting the Road: Tampa, Atlanta, Denver, Seattle, Las Vegas and Phoenix

July 16, 2009 — therugchick

I’m getting ready to hit the road as part of the “Rugs and Restoration Road Show” presented by Piranha Marketing.

This is an event that is a weaving of technical training and marketing training. You see, marketing is telling a story in a way that engages, educates, and builds TRUST in a client-company relationship.

With the restoration business, trust is a critical issue. Your pipe breaks in the middle of the night – who in the world do you trust to call?  Who will do the work right, and will treat your home as if it is their own?

I know those fears. Not only has my town been subject to two city-wide fires in the past 6 years, but we’ve all experienced a flood in our lifetimes. You are frantic, and are worried about what to do, and what will get ruined by the experience.

With floods especially, when there are investment rugs in the home – you worry what to do, or NOT do to them.

Your antique rug is flooded - what do you do?

Your antique rug is flooded - what do you do?

We, like any rug cleaning operation, get calls from our clients worried about their rugs when a flood or other damage hits. This gives us the opportunity to give sound immediate care advice, recommend a restoration company (if they do not already have one), and facilitate bringing the textiles in to remove all of the contaminants before they go back into the home.

What I am going to present at these events to the professional cleaners and restorers who attend are strategies for the proper handling of textiles from a disaster (to minimize the damage), and do’s and don’ts in the cleaning to provide the best clean possible.

I am also going to share some of the strategies I use to not only generate more insurance contents-cleaning work, but also how to document the process to not only build trust with the clients, but to make it a more enjoyable experience for the adjuster also (they work really long hours, and it helps if we can make their work a bit easier so everyone is happy).

David Brinkley will be presenting with Piranha’s Restoration Coaches a range of restoration topics on generating residential and commercial work, and how to use the right equipment and training to make securing that work even easier.

Joe Polish will be a special guest presenter in both Tampa and Atlanta, sharing the marketing systems working the best right now for his members across the US.

It is going to be a fun, hands-on, valuable day of training. I have not taught “rugs” on the road for a few years now, so I’m excited to go out and meet many of the cleaners I’ve helped by email and by phone over the years. Plus the event sponsors are covering speaking costs, so the event fee is super low at $97 – you even get lunch.  Just what you’ll learn from me will pay you back that several times over.  And in Las Vegas, with our additional sponsors, you can come to that one FREE if you are one of the first 75 to sign up.

I love to teach. I love rugs. And I love helping put things back together after a disaster. They are emotional experiences, and so when you can help make one piece of the process a real pleasure for everyone involved, you really feel like you are making a difference.

I hope you come meet me in one of the Road Show cities. I’m looking forward to it!  If you want to register, just visit www.RugsAndRestoration.com.

- Lisa

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What If The Old Ways Are Actually Better?

July 12, 2009 — therugchick

There is a drive in every aspect of our lives to make things better.  Quicker, stronger, cheaper.

This Macbook I’m typing on right now, wirelessly at an airport – is a prime example. Ten years ago… even five years ago, I wouldn’t be able to do this post right now.

It’s part of what makes the world – and life – amazing right now. But also makes us impatient. My flight is delayed, and people here are grumbling, not I guess too impressed that we’re about to fly through the air to magically appear in another city.

Here’s a VERY funny video about this topic – funny but sad I guess.  Life is amazing and nobody is happy.

It makes me wonder sometimes about “progress” actually progressing us as a “people.”  I know at least in the rug world, as the craft of hand weaving a rug slowly dies away, we are losing something important.

Many rugs are becoming commodities – made by machine, quicker, and cheaper.  Absolutely not better. Inferior fibers, dyes, and construction. I see more disposable rugs today than ever before. Ones that will be replaced in a few years instead of in a hundred years.

A hand woven rug can take months, sometimes years, to create. It is a piece of someone’s life. The dye masters are experts in just that - dyeing. The results of a dye master family, skills passed down from generation to generation, makes our new products pale in comparison.

Here is a photo of a rug loom – just look at the detail required to create a textile:

A rug is a piece of a weaver's life.

A rug is a piece of a weaver's life.

As there is “progress” in the rug weaving world, we are losing the culture and connection and tradition that made these textiles “magical” in the first place. There are places where the handcraft and tradition still exist, it’s just slowly getting harder to find.

But this is the same with all traditions, as they are engulfed by “progress.”

I just read a book this weekend – “Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superatheletes, and the Greatest Race The World Has Never Seen” 

Absolutely a book worth reading, even if you are not a runner. It brings to light a lot of wisdom from a isolated culture not just about running, but about life, and living it to enjoy it rather than simply to “get something done.”

It’s amazing how as we get more and more connected to one another electronically, that we become more and more disconnected with life, with tradition, and with doing something just for the pure enjoyment of it. 

What I love about rugs – REAL rugs – is that story behind them. That a shephard raised the sheep that gave the wool. That a dye master scoured the wool, and dyed it a myriad of colors. That a weaver had a picture in her mind, and spun the wool to create that textile. That the rug before me will outlast me several times over.

Progress is awesome. I love my Mac, I love my iPhone, I love my blog.

But tradition is very cool too. Let’s try to hold on to a little bit of both.  Now I’m off to go fly through the air like a superhero!

- Lisa

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Dirty, Rotten Rugs…

July 8, 2009 — therugchick

Many woven rugs have a COTTON foundation (warps and wefts). I mentioned in the prior blog post that if you have old urine stains saturating a rug over time (or any spill for that matter) – you can risk mildew growth in those foundation fibers, and then DRY ROT.

One warning sign  could be simply mildew growing along an edge of a rug – like this:

A lot of mildew damage comes from a nearby planter that leaks.

A lot of mildew damage comes from a nearby planter that leaks.

Sometimes a thorough cleaning can clear up the beginning stages of mildew.  If you give the rug a thorough bath using a sanitizing solution (approved for wool), completely dry the textile (use a moisture sensor to VERIFY the innermost threads are dry), and put it back in a place with the source of the original moisture REMOVED – all will be well.  Happy, shiny rugs!

Most damage we see of this type comes from planters kept nearby rugs.  Even the most careful garderner can over splash a plant, or have moisture or condensation come from the sides or bottom of the planter - and the inside of many of these rugs are cotton threads that are absorbent.  It’s just not a good idea to have plants on top of rugs, or a water cooler, or the dog’s water dish, or putting the rug in a bathroom.

When a moisture problem is severe – and long term – dry rot will set in.  The cotton will essentially start to dissolve.  If you can imagine a skeleton suddenly losing its strength, then you can imagine what happens when tiny wool knots are twisted around cotton threads that no longer have strength or stability – you pull at it, and it literally crumbles in your hands.  Like this:

Rug murder from mildew. Nothing you can do about it.

Rug murder from mildew. Nothing you can do about it.

Usually damage this bad comes from a home being unoccupied with a flooding issue, or a rug that was not elevated when it was placed in a storage unit that had flooded without anyone aware of the problem. (Which happens quite a bit – so it’s a great tip to always elevate your items in storage a few inches to be ”safe” or check the unit regularly.)

You cannot reverse and undo dry rot – all you can do is cut it off.  Some cleaners may attempt to latex a support along the back of the rug, perhaps if the damage is like this piece below which has rotten JUTE weft threads that are crumbling over time from just being old and not because of a water damage incident (you see this happen with old American hooked rugs and some older Portuguese hooked needlepoint rugs as well that have used jute as a foundation thread):

Nothing holding it together.

Nothing holding it together.

With a latex support, you are trying to hold together something with nothing to “hold” on to.  The support of warps and wefts is gone… so all you are doing is delaying the rug’s inevitable death.

But the point – brought up by the prior post of looking closely at OLD pet stains, is, a cleaner must pre-inspect the BACK SIDE of a rug to look for any clues about dry rot.  It may look fine from the front side, but can you imagine putting a rug like any of these into a bath, or running a vacuum over the top of it, and have it fall completely apart on you?

When you point out damage before your wash – it is education.

When you point out damage after your wash – it is an excuse.

I know I sound like a broken record on this one, but I’ve seen enough cleaners get trapped in situations they could have avoided with a little extra time in REALLY inspecting a rug closely before beginning a their job of professionally cleaning it.

- Lisa

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Pet Puddles & Kitty Catastrophes

July 1, 2009 — therugchick

This will probably not get me a whole bunch of fans – but I’m going to say it anyway.

My attitude toward pets is pretty much the same I have with kids … I love them when they are OTHER people’s. :)

More than 60% of homes have pets.  More and more homes these days have hard surfaces, and of course rugs. And – rugs and pets simply don’t mix.

Here’s a shame right here … and I’m sure it’s a sweet dog (one that would not be living long in my home):

A very expensive Pet Toilet.

A very expensive Pet Toilet.

There seems to be this belief in some pet owners that urine and fecal matter consistently spread on rugs – and in their home on the livingroom carpeting - because it’s from a pet means… it’s okay!  Ignore the fact that when you visit their home your eyes water and your nose crinkles up in disgust – it’s okay, it’s just Fluffy’s accident.

(I’m sure Fluffy knew exactly what she was doing … it’s only an accident when you accidentally step in it.)

Here’s the problem with long term urine damage – besides the fact that it’s creating an open air toilet in your home’s living quarters – it’s bad for the rug. It leads to: 1) dye migration/bleeding; 2) dye loss/fading; and 3) dry rot if left unattended too long.

The urine, because it’s warm and acidic, penetrates the rug’s own acid-based dyes, causing many times a permanent discoloration. (TIP: if you love your pets more than your rugs, buy a lot of YELLOW rugs)

But it also penetrates the rug face fibers (most of the time wool) and sinks into the inner foundation threads of the rug (most of the time absorbent cotton) which then leads to mildew and dry rot.  If you pull up a rug (like the one pictured in this blog) and you see large pet stains on the backside, and when you knock it with your knuckles it sounds like hollow wood – then you’ve got dry rot.  During the wash you may risk the whole area deteriorating and creating a large hole.

A rug that someone paid thousands of dollars for… suddenly worth nothing.  But I know… he’s so cuuuuuute!

Please – if you have collectible rugs, and pets you love, please store the rugs or give them to someone who can enjoy them without allowing it to become a toilet.  It’s heartbreaking to see a rug that is meant to last multiple lifetimes ruined after a year of misuse and abuse.

I know there are trained pets out there, but I have heard the shock of “but she never does that INSIDE the house!” so many times to know that dogs will be dogs… and they can go wherever they want outside, so why not inside too? I guess it’s part of the collateral damage of those who try to force animals to be people, and then wonder why their health is not as healthy as it could be. 

At the very least … recommend to your pet-owning and rug-owning clients to have their homes cleaned several times a year, for their own health, the health of their pets & family, and the health of the rug ( to take care of damage before it becomes too severe to mitigate).

I do love dogs … I just love them outside. (They seem to like it better there too… we’re the crazy ones who choose to live in a closed up house in the middle of a gated community!)

- Lisa

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