I recently wanted the carpet steam cleaned in my place - one large room - two small (one cluttered since it's used as storage.) Sensing that I'd need help moving furniture if I really wanted all the square footage cleaned, I wanted some estimates. When I was at the laundry I asked the manager there, who speaks excellent Spanish and English and who once managed an apartment building if he knew a good work person. He handed me the paper publication called El Clasificado. Now if you only speak English well, you may have seen this publication and felt that it was 99% Spanish/Hispanic since the ads are in Spanish and most of the advertisers are seemingly Hispanic. You might even think this publication is evidence of a whole separate economy in the city. But I was not deterred just because I'm a Gringo, There was an ad for SUPER CARPET CARE saying in Spanish that the price of 2 rooms for $27.99 includes pre spotting and steam cleaning and that they have 24 hour services 7 days a week. So I called and the first person I spoke to spoke excellent English and we decided that someone would come out the next morning at 7 am to do a look-see and give me a quote. Well I waited an hour and no one showed up. So I called and this time I got a person who spoke English with an accent, not fluently but I think he understood me as I expressed concern that no one had shown up. This person said I must have talked to a relative... So we agreed, I thought, that someone would show up the next morning. Again stood up. This was the second business that I've called that was Hispanic (or is that Latino?) owned when it comes to carpet cleaning. The other one had flyers on telephone poles all over my neighborhood. What can I say? I called back and said that I didn't think they wanted to do business with me and thanks for wasting my time. Then I got a call from a woman who said she was the wife and I said, I cannot do business with you. I did not know from the ad the location of the business, but when I looked it up on the net, Yelp captured it with the same phone number. So let's say that the company was not too close or too far away from my place. I went with a 3rd Hispanic owned carpet cleaner who was much more expensive, did some lifting but not all the square footage, but was on time, friendly, efficient, and traveled to the Valley all the way from Bellflower for the work. At the price stated in the ad, I could have saved money maybe, but I lost a couple days in which I had hoped to put other things in order.
I read more