Have you ever walked through your living room and got a whiff of something that shouldn’t be there? Or maybe you just had a dinner party and noticed a drop of your famous blueberry pie on one of your dining room chairs. Unexpected situations like this happen all the time, and when it happened to Katherine Simmons she knew she needed to get help right away.

“My husband has had his favorite chair for over 10 years. It’s an eyesore but he loves it so much that I have learned to live with it,” said Simmons. “My daughter brought over her dog, and apparently he loved the chair as much as my husband. But when the dog left, the smells from the dog were left behind and caused my whole home so stink. I knew getting rid of the chair wasn’t an option, so I decided to call John Moore to see if they could help.”

When it comes to smells and stains on upholstery, it’s important to call in the experts immediately because the longer they sit on your furniture, the harder it will be to remove them. And it’s also important to hire a reputable company who knows what they are doing because cleaning off a stain or smell is a science, each one having its own unique way of removal.

What can be removed from where?

No matter how much we love our animals and consider them part of the family, we hate it when they lift their leg on our couch or rug. It is unacceptable. And usually, we tend not to notice until they have done it quite a few times, and by then the smell and stain is beyond our ability to clean up alone.

“We get a lot of calls from customers who have spots on their furniture from their animals, normally they smell the urine for a while but don’t realize how bad it is until they find the hidden spot,” said John Moore Services Houston Water Restoration Manager Joe Souza. “And we can remove the smell and stain from mostly all pieces of furniture including area rugs, couches, love seats, sofas, and dining room chairs.”

Food and liquid stains are also common, especially with the holiday season right around the corner. Holiday parties can run long into the night, and there is no guarantee that your guests will be careful while sitting on your new dining room chairs.

“Liquids, soft drinks, coffee, different types of foods, these are all things we see during the holidays and these items stain pretty good,” said Souza. “We can get most liquid stains out easily, but with food stains it sometimes takes extra time depending on the color of the food. Something red or blue can really hurt the fabric, but we usually are successful. But if the red or blue stain has been on the fabric for a long time sometimes it is hard to remove it completely, but we can get most of it out to where it is hardly noticeable. That’s why it’s important to get somebody out to your house as soon as you notice a stain, the quicker you take action the better our chances are of removing it.”

What is the process for removing stains?

There are a variety of different products that are used to remove stains and smells, because pretty much each stain has its own unique protocol for removal. The first step in the removal process is to identify what the stain or smell is and how long it has been there.

“Then we look at the type of material that is going to be cleaned and from there we can best determine which product we need to use,” said Souza. “We use the same equipment that we do for carpet cleaning but we attach upholstery cleaning tools to it so we can get a deep down clean. We also have to take into consideration if someone has tried to clean the stain before. If that is the case then we need to use different products depending on what was used originally for removal.”

Should I get my furniture cleaned even if there are no stains or smells?

Having your furniture cleaned is just as important as washing your sheets, and should be done once or twice a year depending on usage. Over time, dust mites and other microbes can grow on furniture if they are exposed to food or other organic substances. And sitting on these contaminates can cause health problems for those who have weakened immune systems, like children and the elderly.

“With pets you can also get disease. It’s amazing how people say their pets never get on their furniture but when I clean it, I remove a lot of hair,” said Souza. “I also see a lot of soils from clothing and bare skin, and oils from bodies. Things like that accumulate over time and you might not notice them, but they are there. I have several customers who didn’t notice how dirty their furniture was until they spilled water on it, which cleaned a specific spot. It was only then that they could see the amount of dirt that had collected.”

Removing stains and smells, and periodically having your furniture professionally cleaned can be beneficial to your whole family. And the expert stain-removers at John Moore Services are trained to recognize and remove any and all stains. If you have a spot that won’t come out, or a smell that is unpleasant on any piece of furniture, give us a call and have it removed today!