Sunday, April 18, 2010

Dudes.

I mean seriously. DUDES. I'm floored.

This is the spot where I didn't take a before picture. However, I did manage(?) to miss a bit of the original stain, so you'll still be able to see a bit of how dark it was. You may need to widen your browser to see it, though. It's pretty much directly under the multi-colored DVD box to the right of the two really wide DVD sets that are above the faded stain, but left of Ah-nuld's thumbnail picture on Terminator.

I treated this spot twice because it was so bad. I don't know how long it took to actually dry, this was the first treatment and sat overnight.


I could still see stain while typing my earlier post, so I resprayed before we went out today, about 3:30 or so. When we came home about 9:00, I could. Not. See. ANYTHING. It was only with the added illumination of the flash from the camera that I saw that there was a stain left, which makes me think that what remains is down in the carpet fibers and not on the surface. I'm honestly happy with where it is now (well, except for that tiny bit I managed to miss), but I did go ahead and put on a third application just to see if it will get any better.

We also treated the rest of the spots in that first set of pictures, and now I have no clue where on the carpet that was. The remaining splotches are gone. Vanished. Hit the road Jack. Other areas are also soaking, including patches in the heavy-traffic area of the front door where all the outside dirt gets ground in.

Sadly, I've already burned through an entire can of the carpet cleaner, and the second can is getting pretty light. And I admit, I'm almost certainly applying more than the instructions suggest since I know these are old and ground in. You're just supposed to get the stain damp, not soaked. I simply *must* get more of this.

Meanwhile, I've also sprayed down all of the living room furniture with the Fabric Refresher product. I absolutely love the scent of this. One of the biggest things I hate about Febreze's pet formula stuff is the nasty cloying sweet stench that the actual spray has. And it doesn't do a great job at eliminating anyway.

I admit that I didn't dare to do a sniff test before spraying. But after it dried (which is less than an hour, by the way), all I smell is fresh. Not even the scent of the wet Clean+Green spray. Just fresh.

I'll be blunt. If I had just been told about these products, I would be mildly interested but I almost definitely would not have actually spent the money to try them. And the whole "eco-friendly" thing has become somewhat of a turn-off because of the vast number of products I've tried (cleaning and otherwise) that seem to skimp on other features in the process. Plug-in-to-charge LED flashlights that aren't functional anymore because the rubber thing on the button to turn them on has popped off and can't be reset. Bottles of non-aerosol spray products that get so clogged that you can't get anything out of them after a few uses. Products that just don't perform as well as their non-eco counterparts. Nasty lingering scents. You get the picture.

If I had seen the results in a friend's home, and it would have to be someone with a similar before-and-after kind of story like this but in person so I could smell the difference, I would definitely be interested but still not likely to spend the money. Especially with having been unemployed for so long.

So this drawing was probably the only way to guarantee that I would give Clean+Green a shot. And now that I've personally seen in my own home what these cleaners can do? I'm a convert.

The price is still a bit daunting, however, the Clean+Green website does have a $5 mail-in rebate on your first purchase. Personally, I prefer instant coupons, I tend to forget to mail in the stuff for rebates. The Clean+Green website shows these products on sale for 7.99, regular 9.99. Petco and PetSmart apparently don't carry the cat formulas at all, but Petco did have the dog carpet cleaner on their website for 7.97. And the Clean+Green store locator lists a local shop that carries a limited selection - combination cat/dog carpet, litterbox, and some bird supplies, but that shop's website doesn't list Clean+Green products at all. I do have an email out asking if using the dog formula on cat stains would honestly make a difference. Otherwise, I'll be ordering in mass quantity online to take advantage of their free shipping over $50 offer, which is 6 cans.

Now, I would love to see the company come up with a laundry additive and maybe a liquid that could be used like Spic n Span or Mr. Clean for washing walls and the like. And maybe a product that can be put in the steam cleaner for large scale messes or overall periodic freshening.

It's here!

Hey, it's Mom taking over the blog today. Mungo and Teazer are being lazy and Firecat doesn't like to blog.

We received a wonderfully large box from the people at Clean+Green on Thursday. Of course, we knew it was coming, it was just a matter of when. This is from Kimo & Sabi's giveaway last month.

Of course, this week has been crazy for us here. Buggie was inducted into the National Honor Society on Thursday, so we were at the school all night for the ceremony. Then playoff hockey began on Friday, and we don't have cable TV, so we went to my parents' house to watch the game and do some laundry. Mini stayed the night, and I had things to do at church on Saturday morning, so Buggie stayed home and steamcleaned part of the living room carpet to get up any loose yuck from the carpet before the big product test. I finished that off last night and got pictures of one test at the same time.

I'm especially intrigued at the instruction that there is *NO* rubbing, scrubbing or blotting needed. Just spray, let it dry, and the stain is gone. Or so it says. I'm generally impatient, as well as cynical, so my initial results will be skewed LOL.

I intentionally treated only one spot out of a clump so I could use the rest of the clump as a reference point for pictures. This one was being done while steam cleaning the carpet, so the furniture was all out of place, etc.



That was about a half hour soak from the spray, and then because I'm impatient, I hit it with the steam cleaner. I'm pretty sure that this was *not* a pet stain, but rather spilled food. Probably spaghetti sauce. And it's several months to maybe a year or more old. It's been through four or five attempts with the steam cleaner alone with no result. It's been through at least one attempt with Dyson's Zorb stain remover with no luck, and I can't remember if I ever tried Resolve on it, which I had stopped buying when I tried the Zorb (which actually does work on some of our other stains). By the way, the treated spot was about an inch to an inch and a half in diameter. I probably should have added some coins for size comparison.

One thing I noticed, and I'm not sure if this is good or bad, is that the product comes out as a fairly tight stream. Actually, it started out as a "normal" aerosol, but tightened into the stream quickly. It means that the product is more focused, which also means it's not covering as large of an area. This could be good for small stains so you're not spraying too much area around the actual spot.

I forgot to take a before picture of one especially nasty stain which now already soaking. So I can only describe the before. I'll look through my other pics of the cats to see if I may have gotten lucky, as it's near one of Teazer's favorite nap spots.

In that spot, one of the cats had a really bad regurg and hairball one night, so it soaked the carpet while we all slept. And it's practically up against a bookcase, which made accessing part of the stain difficult. But even the part that the cleaner could get to wasn't seeing any improvement. Before treating today, it was almost as dark as the wood. We'll see how it comes out. I'm forcing myself to not be impatient on this one LOL.

I haven't yet tried the Furniture Refresher or Litter box Deodorizer. We need to run back out again for a while, so we'll save that for later.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Wowwweeeee!!!

Furst - da reeely beeeeg noooz. MOMMA GOTTED A JOBBIE!!!! She's wurkin fer a 'turney in a neerby town, so no more takin da train efurry day. She sez it's moar reel state stuff like she wuz doin before, but dis time its deelin wif korts too. Makes no sense to us, must be silly beenz stuff. Oh, an dis is NOT da jobbie we posted bout lass time, he nefur called her bak. DIS guy herded bout Momma frum anuder 'turney at Momma's church.

Second - we wun Kimo n Sabi's contest! Momma's gotta pick out da goodies still.

Third - Momma's daddy also gotted a job. Sumpin bout countin beenz, but not da door to door type of countin. Agin, we doan get it. Beenz is weeerd.

Dere's lotsa ofur good noos efurrywhere, an its all makin Momma giggle happy. She's got frenz dat got engaged, an frenz dat got noo babybeenz, an frenz wif noo jobs, an a fren whose brofur just gotted home from a 2 year trip on sumpin called a mishun.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Mebbe nooz

Momma hadded a meeting about a mebbe job yesserday. She sed da meeting wuz good, da boss guy seems nice and da job isself souns grate. But da ofiss is cold. Not turn-up-da-heet cold but empty cold. Nobeenz haf pickshures or toys or nuffin on da desks. No moosic playin, an da boss doan like da moosic (she asked). She sez she'lll take da job iffen he offers it to her an if she don't get sumpin better before den. She don't spect ta heer back for a month cuz dats wut he sed.

She mite haf anudder meeting next week for differnt job. She's waiting fur more nooz on dat one.

Da bess nooz, tho? She doin da stringy stuff agin! Da stuff she calls stitchin. We aint seen her do dat in furrever, an we know part of dat was sadness fur not wurkin. So mebbe da sadness is ofur?