Rug Doctor - Anyone hired one and how good are they?

[justbogoffnow]

I need to clean cream carpets which have various stains eg tea, coffee, blood, tar. Sounds awful but I did treat the spills and stains immediately - some came out fine, it's the ones where I couldn't fully remove them. Also there's general 'high traffic' marks on stairs etc.

I'm planning to buy a carpet cleaner but in the meantime £29 for 48 hour hire for a rug doctor sounds a good idea. I have read excellent reviews about results but would like any feedback from MN.
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Hello, this thread is a little old now. If, like the OP, you’re looking for a Rug Doctor you can get one here. MNHQ.

DH gets one about twice a year for a half day to do the sitting room, stairs and landing upstairs (all cream). They do make a great difference - so much so that, even though carpets are 10 years old and we have a very messy 6 year old and an open fire, the hall carpets are still perfect and we are only changing sitting room carpet this year because we are taking out the fireplace to put in a stove so will have a hole to fill. But I think we'll be replacing with cream again.

Watch out the after service is dire....
Hired one from locker 1 at Tescos, it was filthy -dog hair and it stunk, I thought I'll take some photos and moan later. I cleaned it and washed it then filled it with the very expensive fluid only to fine it not working. I followed the on-line support but still not working. I phoned the number at 18:10 on sat and closed till 10:00 . Called at 10:00 and after no support except to question my ability to follow a simple guide, they offered to refund with no redress for my hassle or to collect another unit from Tesco. I opted for this and was given locker 4 with a code for the door. They only have 3 lockers !!! I called to moan again and was told no units at tesco so refund will be with me in a few days..... Crap crap service. As for the quality of the clean I have no idea, we never got that far. No help, no concern from the "help" desk, and when I said you leave me no choice but to leave bad feed back he said go ahead.... I them said I'd attach a link to his recorded phone call he instantly told me he had not given permission and was therefore illegal..... He seemed clued up about that......
My advice, get a cleaner from a person, not a hiding "system" with people who care nothing about end users.....

Hired one today and cleaned large and small bedroom, hall, stairs and landing and largish living room.

Thanks for the Persil tip - worked brilliantly. Machine brought up lots of pet hair and I found it worked well on stains by spraying them well with the RD machine then passing over them again.

Only snag was the assistant in B&Q insisting I needed a utility bill as despite a sign on the machine store stating photo ID plus debit or credit card. I

Manager did the hire without. Extra ID is for someone paying cash!

Hi was wondering if rug doctor is good on old stains as got a sofa with quite few stains...will it be up to the job? Many thanks

It might be. Before you shell out though try using a white, lint free cloth - so no danger of colour run/transfer or bits coming off it - with a warm solution of ordinary Stardrops in water. Wring the cloth out well and use to clean the sofa. I use old linen napkins for that kind of job and got a very grubby sofa (thank you cat) looking almost like new again. I had been thinking it was for the tip.

I have used it recently. Not too badly priced, and got a lot of dirt out the carpet, but I have recently got a steam mop which is a lot lighter and seems to have done a better job!!

I have fairly new (3 year old) carpets. Im really wary of rug doctor after seeing our old carpet being sucked up and stretched by the rug doctor. im also worried about tummy bug germs from those who have hired them after a bad bout

Would be industrial carpet cleaner be less viscious on my carpets? We were quoted several hundred pounds for someone to come in and do them.

Right- just looked Brandon hire website and its £97 for a weekend hire. I have used rug Dr in an old house, they had a dog and every inch of manky living room carpet had a dog wee stain on it and stank. I hired a rug Dr and went over 22 times!!! It came up pristine- they do recommend not going over it more than a couple of times however.

We are about to hire one to do upstairs cream carpets and will def try the washing liquid suggestion as the cleaning fluid cost more than the hire. A friend recommended doing the last sweep with just fresh water . I will def be trying the vanish tip on stains - there are a couple of mysterious blobs on DDS carpet.

Last time I had the upholstery attachment and did the stairs with that but didn't find it very good.

To dry the carpets we put a household fan in room, opened windows and put heating on, was dry in a couple of hrs.

We are moving house shortly and will def be hiring one when we move it as they are stiff with ingrained yuckyness!!!

Does anyone know if I can use it on a silk mix middle Eastern rug? I have a beautiful and expensive rug that was bought for me but two small kids that have weed, vomited it and chucked milk on it, I know ingrained dirt will ruin it but I worry rug Dr will too - I would imagine it's a bacteria timebomb!!

Befor my last experience with rug doctor I would have been recommending you hire one. However, I hired one to clean my cream rug and it spewed out dirty brown water which has left a large brown stain on the rug. I contacted rug doctor and they wouldn't help. After some difficulties, I managed to get the place where I hired it from to take responsibility. They are sending a carpet cleaner around. Interestingly, when I spoke to him, he said I was about the 4th person to have experienced this with rug doctor. Hopefully, he will be able to clean the horrible stain away. My advice now, is to hire a professional carpet cleaner.

the video in this blog contains interesting information about the rug doctor. It makes a comparison with a professional carpet cleaners equipment. It maybe bias but thought it useful.

www.probitascarpetcleaning.co.uk/blog/2017/10/10/rugdoctorhire/

Any thoughts?

Yes I used a Rug Doctor. It left 4 inch grooves all over the carpet. Rug Doctor denied all responsibility. I am 75 years old and let my lady cleaner do the work she has used Rug Doctor several times, they said I broke there terms and conditions by letting someone else use it Coming up with all sorts of excuses.
They sent an independent inspector but after 3 weeks we have not received a copy of the "independent" report. Their letterheads show NQA iso 9001 registration, yet no one at the company has heard of ISO 9000. and they say they dont have a QC manager.
BEWARE BEWARE BEWARE.

After reading your many uncomplimentery reports regarding RUG DOCTOR I am now going to meet theTesco Manager in Garforth Leeds

I also fell for the rug doctor scam and want to share my experience to prevent other victims.

I rented the machine to clean out the carpets before the check-out inventory of the flat I was renting.

I collected the machine from a cage in ASDA and it was filthy! and no one there to mention anything.

The machine itself is so poorly engineered it seems fit for The Flintstones.

It's so heavy that it's already a fit to get it home from wherever you collect it from, let alone trying to manoeuvre it around the small spaces of a typical residential property.

No problem, I thought, I'll rent the upholstery tool as well.

Little I knew that the upholstery tool was unusable due to an unavoidable kink that was generating in the hose which made it spray water all over the place randomly.

By the way, if you wonder how to drain the tank and are up for a good laugh call the customer support, it's absolute genius! The manager will tell you either keep spraying all the water out from the tool until it's finished or take the machine out of your home, tilt it and dump everything outside there and then! DISTURBING!

As a result, after hours trying to get some value off the rental cost, I ENDED UP HAVING TO CLEAN MANUALLY AFTER ALL THE MESS THE MACHINE HAD MADE!

I complained on the phone requesting a refund and all they had to say, including a manager! was that they would lend me the machine for another day for free!!! Not only they do not understand THAT I DON'T WANT TO BREAK MY BACK EVER AGAIN WITH ONE OF THEIR RIDICOLOUS MACHINES but they are not even receiving the fact that their proposal makes no sense anyway as I needed it for the checkout cleaning!

We went on and on and on about this and said they would send an engineer to check the machine for any issue and will let me know. To add to the INSULT, they said if they found any issue with the upholstery tool they would refund me the 2 or 3£ of it, when I have spent NEARLY 50£ between rent, accessories and detergent. Never mind that you CANNOT MAKE ANY USE OF THE MACHINE WITHOUT THAT TOOL!

Have they ever contacted me back? NO

Put the hard cost together with all the time you'll spend collecting the machine, cleaning it up at the start, trying to make a use of it, re-cleaning it after use, bringing it back to the shop, finding another way of doing the cleaning when you figure out THE MACHINE HAS MADE YOUR CARPET WORSE, spend the time complaining on the phone.

IS IT WORTH IT? NO

Check on SHPOCK, you get mobile cleaners which do a professional job for the same money.

Or spend a little more and buy a decent machine that you then keep.

I haven’t hired their machine but I used the solution in my old vax and it’s amazing. Cream rug is no longer a grey rug.

I've used Rug Doctor many times and they are brilliant machines. The amount of grime and dirt it sucks up is shocking! Especially when you see the carpet is so "clean". I would definitely hire one! Well worth it.

The Zoflora for Pets (in the pet section) is great to put in the Rug Doctor.

I am running my industry named rugler and rugler is the exporter of handmade rugs and carpets.
In my opinion, you can try the home remedy tips first
Vinegar is the superhero of stain removal (and cleaning in general!). Try these different formulas for homemade carpet stain remover to remove a variety of common stains: Rub light carpet stains with a mixture of 2 tablespoons salt dissolved in 1/2 cup white vinegar. Let the solution dry, then vacuum.

Professional cleaners are your choice not Rug Doctor
I rented Rug doctor machine on 27/Oct/2019 at 16:00 for 24 hrs from Asda eastlands superstore at Sportcity, Ashton New Rd, Manchester M11 4BD UK, my Order Number is VYHXXWS.

I needed the machine to clean my sofa and therefore I had to rent the hand tool since the machine alone can be used to clean carpet only. The machine was old (with 308 hrs) and not clean. After using the hand tool for around 1.5 hrs the hose got ripped and the machine leaked soap all over my carpet! Consequently, I had to stop using the machine and returned it the next day. I contacted the customers service online to complain about this and to ask for full refund (cost of renting the machine and the hand tool). The customers service representative response was "apologise for the condition of the hand tool you collected from the store. Our Rug Doctor Area Sales Representatives regularly visit stores to service and maintain all rental machines and hand tool kits, but obviously on this occasion they didn’t make it in on time to service it, and we also rely on the previous renter to inform us about faults that occur in their rental period."
Notice that they blamed previous customers

They offered to refund only the hand tool rent but refused to refund the machine rent! and offered 48 hrs to rent the machine at any time of my choice!
I'm not satisfied by their service and I encourage you to avoid renting from such company and try professional cleaners to avoid wasting your money unless you want to pay for Rug doctor and professional cleaners since you will end up paying for professional cleaners after you try Rug doctors cheap machines.

I have used rug doctor to clean my carpet in the bedroom, but if I have to be honest it didn't do a great job and I needed to hire a local cleaner. I'm based in Bromley, if you need them here is their website: https://www.proluxcleaning.co.uk/bromley/carpet-cleaning