I’m always getting little coupons in the mail from various carpet cleaning companies offering specials, like “three rooms for $20″ or “any size room $7.95 (3 room minimum)” and sometimes they throw in cleaning a sofa or special additional discounts for upholstery.

So although I have a carpet cleaning machine and use it about once a month, I feel like calling the professionals with their heavy duty chemicals and equipment will do a more thorough job if I hire them once a year for a spring cleaning.

What is annoying is the push by the person who shows up to do the cleaning to upsell you on a lot more services and cost. The carpet cleaner told me that I need extra spot treatments and extra conditioners and extra enzyme treatments and tried to run my bill up from the $20 coupon rate to $300. That’s obscene. I told him I wanted the coupon rate and nothing more and he played it out, telling me he had to get special permission from the home office to not do the extra treatments, because he was concerned that I would not be satisfied with the $20 process. He came back and said the home office had authorized him to give me a big discount if I wanted to go ahead and get all the extras for just $200. But I held firm and said I wanted the $20 and to quit wasting my time and get busy.

He finally did the job and it turned out OK, but I’m still very annoyed at the high pressure sales tactics and the huge difference in price that they tried to get from me. We spent more arguing about the cost than it took him to just do the job. He was so disagreeable that I felt he might deliberately sabotage the cleaning or steal something from my house, so I had to stand there at the hallway and watch his every move. It was a totally unpleasant morning although now I do have a clean carpet.