Should You Have The Air Ducts In Your Home Cleaned? The US Environmental Protection Agency says that you should only have your ducts cleaned if there is a "substantial visible"mold growth inside the ducts or other parts of your heating or cooling system or if you recently had a fire. You should also have your ducts cleaned if they are infested with vermin or insects. However, the EPA also stated that "there is no scientific evidence that duct cleaning has ever shown to actually prevent health problems". If you insist on getting your ducts cleaned, then first consult your doctor. You or a member of your family may be allergic to things that have nothing to do with your heating or cooling system. Then, if medical testing proves you’re not allergic to anything, then have your carpets cleaned. Previous EPA studies have shown that 75% of all indoor air pollution problems can be traced to soiled carpets. Then if you still insist on having your ducts cleaned, then make sure you are aware of all the potential health risks of duct cleaning before you hire a contractor and spend $400 or more. If you do hire a contractor, make sure the firm offers a written no-questions asked, money-back guarantee if you don’t feel better after having your ducts cleaned. If you want the whole truth about duct cleaning, you can read the latest 20 page EPA report by getting on line at http://www.epa.gov/iedweb00/pubs/airduct.html  Or write: US Environmental Protection Agency, Office Of Indoor Air, IED (66041) 401 M St., SW, Washington, DC 20460. Phone 202-564-9370 or fax 202-564-9370.

Places Where You Should Never Buy Carpet Or Flooring You should never buy new carpet or new floor coverings from carpet and upholstery cleaners and never buy new carpet or floors from carpet retailers who clean them. The reason? It is a lot easier and more profitable for these firms to sell you new carpets or floors since it takes too much skill and expertise to clean and restore your carpets and floors like new. So it’s a lot easier for these types of firms to tell you that your carpets or hard floor coverings need to be replaced when it really is not true. Also, you  should never get your floors sanded by retailers of who sell and install new wood floors for the same reasons.

You Should Never Get Your Furniture Re-Upholstered by companies who clean upholstery. Reason? It takes more skill and expertise to clean and restore upholstery than it does to recover it. So it’s a lot easier and more profitable for a cleaner to tell you your couch is "trashed out" and that it needs to be "recovered" rather than running the risk of cleaning and restoring it. Here at Allstate, we’ve been cleaning and restoring all kinds of fine furniture and draperies for over a decade. And we absolutely guarantee in writing that there will be no shrinkage, no color bleeding, no color loss and no fabric damage on any upholstery or draperies that we accept as cleanable under our our system. For a free no-obligation inspection and evaluation or your furniture or drapes, call us today at 609-586-5833. P.S. We also clean and restore all kinds of leather furniture too.

When In Doubt Call The BBB - A 5 minute phone call to your local Better Business Bureau can save you time, money and aggravation if you take the time to check out a new or established firm before you hand over your money. You’d be surprised at how many retailers, contractors and professionals that have an unsatisfactory record when it comes to resolving legitimate customer service issues. In South Jersey call the BBB at 609-854-8467, in Ocean County call 732-270-5577, in Central Jersey call 609-588-0808, in Northern NJ its 973-581-1313 and in PA call 215-985-9313. If you’re buying services or merchandise by mail or over the Internet from a company out of state, you can access all the local BBB’s across the nation on the net at www.bbb.org. In NYC, you can check out most businesses right online. Some crooked retailers and contractors even go as far as using the BBB logo in their newspaper and direct mail advertising without the BBB approval! So if you do spot the BBB logo in an ad, check it out online or with the local BBB to make sure the firm is on the up and up.
 

Don’t Buy An Oriental Rug Until You Read This A few months ago, Chris Wallace of ABC’s 20/20 program did an expose’ on Washington DC’s oriental rug dealers and found that 12 out of 13 were dishonest! And 20/20 reported that the problem of mis-representing the age, quality, value and fiber content of oriental rugs may be nationwide. On woman in the 20/20 report invested $14,000 in a so called "antique persian rug" that turned out to be almost worthless. So here are some tips on how to protect yourself from getting fleeced when buying an oriental rug. First, don’t buy from any dealer that you don’t trust or who won’t take a major credit card. If you put your purchase on a credit card, the credit card company will back you up if the sale is not above board. Second, make the dealer print clearly on your sales slip the country of origin of the rug, it’s exact fiber content, and whether it’s an antique and it’s actual value. Then make sure the store has a liberal return policy of at least 30 days if you don’t like the way the rug looks when you get it home. And last, make sure the store will give you ample time to have your rug valued by an independent certified appraiser whose opinion will hold up in court. If you’re investing a hefty sum in a carpet, ask the appraiser to meet you at the store before you make the purchase. To find an appraiser  in your area write: International Society Of Appraisers, Riverview Plaza Ofc Pk, 16040 Christenson Rd, Suite 102, Seattle, WA 98188. Phone 206-241-0359 or fax 206-241-0436. Their website address is www.isa-appraisers.org.

The Best Way To Clean Up Spills, Spots And Pet Accidents on carpet and upholstery is to use a disposable baby diaper. It’s one of the most absorbent materials on earth. Any brand will do and generics are just fine. Just make sure the diaper is pure white with no printing or designs inside or out. When you have a carpet spot or spill, use your favorite store brand spot remover and blot the spot with a 100% white cotton rag or towel. After you remove the spot, take a one quart spray bottle and fill it with 50% white vinegar and 50% water. Take that mixture and mist it on the area where you used your spotter. Then place a baby diaper over the moist area and put a 10 lb weight or heavy object on top of the baby diaper. Any chemical residue from your spotter and the original spill will wick up into the baby diaper. Always pretest spotters before you need to use them. The best place to test carpet spotter is in a carpeted closet area. The best place to test your spotter on upholstery is on the back of the cushion where the zipper is located. Stand the cushion up and carefully make a spot the size of a dime next to the zipper. Leave the cushion upright and let it air dry. If there is more than one color, make sure to test each color. If you notice a change or loss in color, a change in the "hand" or feel of the fabric or water rings, you won’t be able to use your spotter on your upholstery.

Why You Should Avoid Sending Your Oriental And Area Rugs Out To Be Cleaned If your oriental or area rugs are very valuable, you can avoid potential loss or damage that may occur while your rugs are in transit. In fact, many carpet cleaners who advertise in-plant carpet cleaning have no plant at all and they are just middlemen for some far off carpet cleaning plant that doesn't know you from Adam or Eve. Or even worse, many cleaners will attempt to clean your rug on some dirty garage floor or outside on an asphalt driveway. In addition, most carpet cleaners are not properly insured to transport and store your fine orientals and area rugs. At Allstate, we’ve been cleaning fine and antique oriental rugs on site without incident for almost two decades. And we’ve developed an exclusive process to clean them right in your home or office. We feel the less a fine area rug is moved, the less it’s fibers are traumatized by improper handling, transport, storage and fluctuations in temperature. When you entrust us with your area rugs for cleaning, you avoid any potential loss due to uninsured transport. You carpets are back in service  in just a few hours instead of a few weeks and you avoid the inconvenience of having to be available for specific  pick-up and delivery times. You also avoid the potential damage to your bare hardwood, marble, stone or resilient floors. And the decor and beauty of your home or office remains undisturbed. Most of all, we guarantee you no shrinkage, no color bleeding, no color loss, no fabric damage or any fine oriental or area rug accepted as cleanable under our exclusive on-site system. If you’ve ever wondered why your carpet fringes are getting shorter and shorter, it’s because many in-plant cleaners use bleach to make bone or natural color fringes look white. However, any kind of bleach used on cotton fringes will start to dissolve and shorten the fringes over time. Then the rug may need to be "re-fringed" at considerable expense. At Allstate, we never use any type of harsh chemical treatments on your rugs that may affect their natural beauty and appraisal value. When you’re ready for the very best in oriental and area rug cleaning, call us for a free no-obligation evaluation in Mercer or Bucks counties at 609-586-5833.
 

How To Find A Good House Cleaner The best way to choose a house cleaner is to first ask your friends, co-workers, neighbors or relatives for a recommendation. If that’s not an option, scan the small weekly newspapers in your area for individual house cleaners who run ads in the classifieds. If they’ve been doing it for a while, the cleaner should have no qualms about offering you 5 to 10 references with phone numbers to call. You can try a franchise company, but from what we hear from our clients, the service is mediocre at best. Also, franchise cleaners tout that they’re bonded and insured, but they have to be since they have such a high turn over of personnel. And that means higher weekly or monthly rates for you. Plus some of their workers may steal , have drug problems or have criminal records. After all, companies that pay minimum wage can’t afford to do background checks on their employees. So your best bet will be to go with an individual cleaner whose references check out.

How To Choose The Right Fabric When Buying New Furniture - If you have young children or pets, you should always choose 100% synthetic fabric when buying new furniture. Reason? The synthetics fibers are easier for you to spot clean when they get soiled or when accidental spills occur. Fabrics should be either 100% synthetic or a blend of Polyester, Dacron, Acrylic or Olefin( aka Polypropylene). The only time you will know the content of the fiber of your furniture is when you see it listed on the piece on the showroom floor. You should never take the salesman’s word as far as the fiber content goes unless you see it in writing on the spot. You should always avoid buying 100% or blends of rayon, cotton, wool or silk since it takes more skill and expertise to clean and restore "naturals" than it does to recover them. However, it always cheaper to clean and restore your fine furniture rather then recovering or replacing it. Another fabric to avoid if you have children or pets is leather. Many people are buying leather furniture thinking it is as easy to clean and maintain as car seat leather. In 98% of the cases this is not true. In addition, fine leather cleaning and restoration is more tedious, time consuming and takes even more skill than cleaning fabric upholstery. Charges of $25 to $50 per linear foot are not uncommon. So when it’s time to clean your fine furniture, give us a ring. Because here at Allstate, we positively absolutely guarantee you no bleeding, no fabric damage and no shrinking on any furniture deemed cleanable under our exclusive system of cleaning and restoration. For a free no obligation evaluation of your fine furniture in Bucks or Mercer counties, give us a ring at 609-586-5833.

How To Avoid Fire Hazzards When Buying New Furniture & Draperies - If your present furniture is stuffed with polyurethane foam, it may pose a dangerous fire hazzard since this type of foam is extremely flammable. On November 5^th,  ABC’s 20/20 program reported that only the state of California makes it mandatory that  furniture makers apply flame retardant to polyurethane stuffing. If the stuffing hasn’t been treated, then a short in an electrical cord, a knocked over candle, a lit cigarette or cigar or children playing with matches could cause a chair or couch to burst into flames in just 2 ½ minutes. Then it could easily spread quickly throughout the house. Here at Allstate, we’ve always offered certified on location flame retardant application for stage, auditorium, commercial and residential draperies and furniture. And we can also treat your mattresses, airplane and boat interiors. Our exclusive process is guaranteed not to affect the appearance, feel, breath ability, or dyes as accepted as applicable under our system. Our process is also guaranteed to be non-toxic, colorless, odorless and it won’t irritate the skin. For schools, churches or commercial installations, we will provide a certificate of application that may be required by your insurance company or your local or state fire marshal. In addition, our process is also guaranteed to meet or exceed the of the flammability requirements of the F.A.A, FAR 25.853B, NFPA Class A and UBC Class 1 ratings. Our flame retardant can also withstand dry cleaning, and it can also be applied to your carpets if you smoke and want to prevent fires in the home. For a free no-obligation demo of our product and a comprehensive audit of your fine furnishings in Mercer or Bucks counties, just call us at 609-586-5833.

Free Carpet Spotter For Life - Any time you engage us for carpet, upholstery or drapery cleaning, you’ll always received a free bottle of our carpet spotter at no charge. If you don’t have our spotter, you can use some of the popular brands sold in supermarkets. But just make sure the brand you buy does not contain optical brighteners. Any carpet spotter or cleaner that contains optical brighteners used on today’s stain resistant carpets will automatically void your carpet warranty. Also, once optical brighteners are introduced to modern carpet fibers, they are difficult to remove and will have a tendency to appear yellow over time.
 

The Inside Scoop On Laminate, Wood Composition, Rubber & Linoleum Floors - Real linoleum is still being made today by two companies in Europe. And these floors are only available on special order from a few upscale retailers and interior designers. The new linoleum is actually wood cork composition that can be immediately ruined by using readily available commercial janitorial waxes and cleaners. The same holds true for some rubber floors. If you have one of these floors and you need it sealed, let us know. We have the expertise and we stock the special Swiss cleaning treatments needed to properly maintain these floors. If you have a laminate floor made in Sweden or the USA, be careful never to scratch it. Reason? Once the floors is scratched, it can never be restored. That’s because most laminate floors are merely a photograph of wood with a clear plastic dome on top. Although the makers of these floors flaunt a 15 year guarantee, the warranty does not cover scratches. So read the fine print. If you must get one of these floors, make sure you get it in a matte finish (no gloss shows less scratches) and follow the makers maintenance directions to the "T". Since they are not scratch proof, avoid installing them where children and pets will play. The next floor to watch out for is wood composition. Wood composition floors can be made out of the cheapest wood on earth and then they are specially treated at the factory to replicate expensive woods. But once these wood floors are compromised, then can never be restored or repaired in the field. So your best investment in any wood floor covering is 100% wood that can be sanded or restored several times over a period of years.

Are Your Drapes A Little Drabby? If they are, we can clean your fine draperies right where they hang in your home or office. And we can also clean your woven woods, balloons, silhouettes, vertical blinds, cornices, jabots, valances and swags right on location. Plus we absolutely positively guarantee you in writing no shrinkage, no color bleeding, no color loss and no fabric damage on any fine drapery ,carpet, oriental, area rug, furniture or floor covering accepted as cleanable under our exclusive on-site system. For free no-obligation evaluation of your fine furnishings in Mercer or Bucks counties, call 609-586-5833 right now.

How To Care For Marble & Limestone Floors Certain foods and chemicals should never come in contact with with marble and limestone floors, counter tops, walls and vanities. Reason? They contain acids which "etch" these sensitive stone surfaces and they will leave a dull spot even if the stone was previously sealed. The foods and solutions that should not come in contact with marble and limestone are: vinegar, urine, lemon , vomit, tomato, mildew removers, bleach, coffee, toilet bowl cleaners, fruit juices, lemon cleaners, pool PH decreasers, wine and driveway cleaners. Make certain the cleaner you use on your marble or limestone has a "neutral" PH of seven. PH stands for the "percentage of hydrogen" in water based solutions. Solvents do not have a PH. Highly alkaline substances like ammonia (PH 13) or mild acid substances like vinegar (PH 3) can etch or damage marble or lime stone instantly.  These temperamental  stones require specially formulated cleaners that have a "neutral" PH . But keep in mind that even if a cleaner has a PH of 7, and claims to be formulated for marble, it still may do damage. That’s because some neutral cleaners contain chelates. Chelates dissolve or destroy calcium in water and eliminate hard water deposits. Since marble and limestone contain large amounts of calcium, the chelates in some cleaners attack and dull the finish of marble and limestone. If you need a neutral cleaner formulated without chelates, we can get it for you. Or if you have any kind of vinyl, or natural stone surface that needs to be restored like new, or if you need wood floors restored without sanding, give us a ring at 609-586-5833 from anywhere in Bucks or Mercer counties. We can help.  Cleaning Matters is published quarterly and sent first class mail to the friends and clients of Allstate Services all over the globe. This newsletter is not available by subscription and is forwarded free of charge to current clients and friends who use and recommend our services. If we haven’t had the pleasure of serving you, then we look forward to it and we hope to add you to our long list of smiling clients.
 
 

Entire Contents © MMVIII Allstate Services International Inc. All Rights Reserved. Duplication or quotation for commercial use is not permitted. Downloading and printing this particular issue for personal, private and non-business use is permitted.