Unfortunately, this is one of those "If I could leave zero stars, I would" situations. I'm dealing with a severe injury and in bed most of the time, so I will often limp to the kitchen make some food and then bring it back to bed and eat in bed, so over time there have been spills on my carpet that I just couldn't deal with anymore and I ended up having an available day where I could have them done and I really wanted to get it done right away, so I went on Yelp to get a quote and unfortunately when you do that, Yelp splinters out your 1nrequest (intended for 1 company) to EVERY company in that category, so you get bombed by responses.
Kirk from Steam Tech was part of that blast of text responses and said he could come the next day. I was happy about that, but that should have been my first clue that he didn't already have something booked, because all the other companies could not do it on such short notice. I asked him to do just the walkways/exposed areas in my bedroom which came out to be about 80 square feet since the whole bedroom is a 168 square feet and it was only about half the room that wasn't covered by large furniture, an 8 x 8 area rug, and a 9 x 11 area rug. He quoted me $180. When he arrived, I asked him if he could also do a very small (3 x 4 feet) area rug, right inside my front door, a small ottoman (about 2x4 feet), and just the end of the couch (not any cushions which I removed the covers of and washed in my washer) but just the armrest of the couch. He said he could do it all for $200 total. I also had asked if he could do a second fabric ottoman In my living room which he said he would do as part of my ad-ons for an extra $20 and he never did, but I didn't realize until after he left. Everything seemed to go fine, except for when he left the largest area rug (which was part of the initial quote and one of the 3 main priorities for me) had ripples all throughout it. I asked about it and he said "If you vacuum it, it will smooth them out". Well, I have vacuumed several times over the last 8 days since the service and they won't come out! I'm recovering from a triple-fractured ankle and am very limited in my mobility and shuffle around the house with a cane, so every step is scary and dangerous even on flat ground with no extra trip hazards. I messaged him today (8 days after the service) and told him that the bumps in the carpet are making me trip and almost falling and hurting myself even more. His response was "You just need to stretch each corner out the way it was". What??? If vacuuming it is not going to pull them out, I don't think I can just pull them out like the hulk with my own arm strength. It is dried and frozen with those ripples, so it has been stretched out and it won't smooth back to the original flat (and safe) area rug.
THEN he said " That was actually a freebie so a refund would not be needed". WHATTT???? That was actually the largest surface area that I needed to have done and was part of the original quote!
Also, he claimed to have extra strong suction equipment that would remove most of the moisture and dry quickly, but it took over a day! I couldn't move back small furniture that I had moved out of the way to reach the carpets for cleaning (which again was dangerous for me to have to limp around that those items that were in the walkways of rooms) while I was waiting for everything to dry for LITERALLY 24 hours.
So the whole "freebie" claim is bogus since that was literally one of the 3vmain areas that I had messaged him about in order to get the quote and it was one of the main reasons I wanted to get my carpets cleaned. Very shady and unprofessional!
It definitely was a red flag when I paid and the charge from my bank was from 'Drain Point', so it seems like maybe he was a plumber who probably wasn't making enough money doing that (which doesn't surprise me given his business practices) and now is trying to clean carpets instead, or maybe doing both at the same time, which again is a red flag if thats the case! Now it makes sense why he had NO REVIEWS on Yelp. There was another great company that actually couldn't fit me in for weeks called Steam Pro, and I had so many people responding to me that I got it mixed up and when Kirk texted me I got it confused with Steam Pro because I was getting blasted with so many messages from all the different providers and since Kirk had no reviews for Steam Tech, it wasn't even on my radar - and now I know why!
I will attach the pictures of the damaged area rug I had done, and also include the screenshots from our text stream today. BIG REGRET using somebody with No reviews on Yelp who was available for a next day carpet cleaning, and now I see why. read more