Chem-Dry
Reviews and Complaints

I called Kem dry because they advertise that they do service the Lakeland Florida area. When I called there to schedule the appointment, they scheduled it and then called me back and told me that they don’t service the Lakeland area. I told them that they actually have an ad on the Internet that says cam dry Lakeland. so I’m just putting it out there and I’m not sure why company would advertise for quite a large size city and then say they don’t service the area any longer. Then why don’t you take your ad down and save people time and hassle? Or change your ad to the areas that you actually do. I wouldn’t trust a company like this. Even had the nerve to ask me if I knew anyone in the Tampa area that would need cleaning. Something seems very scammy about this place and I would definitely not trust it. Hope this review helps someone else.

We called for two lounge cleaning. They gave me quote $70 per seating position, After they clean the lady showed my two chase of sofa that 3-4 person can seat & charge me 4X $70 for my per standard chase of my sofas . That is horrible experience for us . Still uncleaned all the corners of my sofa . Charged us $842. Horrible experience from the company who can cheat regarding the price. .Would never call or recommend. I didn't read any review before, somewhat seems like a bullying service from their company.Even didn't send me invoice. Those cheat lady kind of bullying my husband to pay straightway on her hand held eftpos.

Hello,
On 11-5-2021 I contacted my local (zip code 98236) Chem Dry franchisee since I heard good things about the process your company uses to clean carpets. I call his number and each time his message machine cut off before I could complete a message. I tried five different times. It should be noted that the weather was windy and very cloud covered with drizzle and sometimes on Whidbey Island where we live in Washington state cell service has issues. Having said that the one time the owner answered the phone he hung up on me as he said don't call back- you called five times before. I can understand his remarks but I wanted to explain what happened so I called back using another number and left a message again explaining what happened and asked for an appointment. He never called back.

All I can say is that the only words I have to describe them is "lies." The pitch was that the carbonated solution left no residue behind that would attract dirt. Well, the person cleaning my carpets dripped some of his solution on my entry floor - no big deal. But when I got to it, it had dried. And what did I find? A sticky little spot! No way I thought, not Chemdry. But sure enough I had to get a damp rag and wipe it up and it was sticky. Also, my wife mentioned that the spot cleaner felt like it had left a residue behind. No, I thought, not possible. So I tested it - squirted some into my and and let it evaporate and sure enough, it left behind a sticky residue. Then I sprayed some on my table top. Sure enough, it dried leaving behind a sticky residue.

How do they get away with such falsehoods for so long? If it's sticky, it will attract dirt. So they clean my carpet with a sticky cleaner, then give me a bottle of sticky spot cleaner - sounds like a great recipe for return customers who need their carpets cleaned ever more often as the sticky residue quickly attracts dirt.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Never again Chemdry.

Don’t use AAA Chem Dry (Tom Okeefe). I have heard that this company provided professional cleaning services, therefore I hired them. I needed to clean my mattress and the guys used wrong the cleaners and when I saw the mattress there were dirty spots and it became yellow. I argued with this man, because I paid $120 for the service plus taxes, but my mattress was completely ruined. Don’t overpay them.

I bought two franchises from Chem Dry in Feb 2014. I was told that a 800 phone number on their website was where customers called and the number was used to give out business to the franchises in the area on a rotating basis. I was told about what a great name Chem Dry had. This was in February 2014. I went to Chem Dry school in April. Again we were told about the fabulous name Chem Dry had established since the beginning of its establishment. In June of 2014 I believe we were notified by Chem Dry that they would be updated their marketing practices and we would now be relying on a website. We could either purchase from them or build our own. Either way for the Chem Dry franchisee who was in business for the last 15 years, he already had one and probably a nice customer list as well. For the new guy like me, showing up on page 22 on Google didn't bring me a single customer. Nor did Chem Dry's New and Improved website appearing with 11 other franchises either. Forget about the new website fees as well. In July after much complaining, I received used portable equipment which blew fuses in most homes I tried to clean carpets in. Again, another change, a new update to their equipment . I finally received my new equipment in the end of August, just in time for the slow down of back to school. Funny, I wasn't made aware of the marketing changes and equipment upgrades when I purchased the franchises, in February. You don't really believe that a company with that many franchises didn't know these changes were going to take place. 6 month prior? Or how about their formula of 55, 000 population per franchise. Do they consider all the other companies Stanley Steamers, ZeroRez, Sears Etc. or how about the guy who owns his own van and machine, how many per 55, 000 are there? I found the carpet cleaning industry is a over saturated, under priced market . With the price of Chem Dry's Products, website fees and then equipment financing how do you compete with a guy who advertises 2 rooms for 59 dollars or P.U.R.T. Chem drys pet urine removal (neutralizer ) it works well but takes 24 hrs to work correctly. Two trip to a customers house? They don't tell you that in Chem Dry school! How about the Chem Dry process to check if franchise is operating correctly? They offer a customer who requested work at their website a free cleaning if they will take pictures of you, your staff and Van, get samples from your truck's tank of your products and then ask you a few questions. I was never so humiliated in all my life! Bottom line I had to advertise in a shoppers magazines (market), compete with another Chem dry ( the guy who cleans 2 rooms for 59) . I was told to have 5 months of operating cash, I didn't have the right equipment for 7 months. I couldn't even brake even! Before investing in Chem Dry do your homework! Get all of the shopper magazines in your area and see the real prices! Don't talk to the Chem Dry whose been in business for 10 years, go see the guy whose started a year ago if he is still around. Listen to the radio and TV, who advertises, not Chem Dry!No national advertising, ever! They are a product franchise, they are there to sell product, not carpet cleaning or upholstery cleaning! Read about arbitration should you have a bad experience such as mine, you need to go to Utah and hire an attorney in Utah to even try to argue with them ! They are salesman who take advantage of good hard working people, the public is smart especially when it comes to rugs! this industry has educated the consumer for the last 20+ years and they know all about bait and switch! Pre sprays, fragrances, urine removal etc. CHEM DRY IS A RIP OFF! I LOST A LOT OF MONEY AND WAS NOT CONTACTED BY THEM FOR A YEAR AFTER I LOST MY MONEY AND SHUT IT DOWN! I was a very successful businessman before Chem Dry, I did quite well in the Janitorial business for many years!I bought this as a passive income, put a truck or two onthe road with techs as they explained to me!How do you sleep at night Charlie Erickson? Think about this their name CHEM- DRY (Chemicals in a society going green!) I could kick myself every time I think about them! So if some Chem Dry official responds with some wordy explanation, think about it ? Why would I waste my time writing this on line? And not everyone knows who Chem Dry is as they would like you to believe! Good luck ! Go to your nearest carpet cleaning warehouse and ask them!

Very rude and incompetent carpet cleaners. Tried to Pull the bait and switch on the carpet cleaning price three times. Would not respond to our complaints when they wanted to increase the price of the cleaning more than fifty percent over what we were promised. Very deceptive with no customer service skills. Tried to make me pay fifty percent over the price promised when they knew it was too late to get another carpet cleaner that day. Very unprofessional. Avoid them and save yourself a hassle.

As I write, I am sitting and waiting on the technician of them DRI of the Fayetteville, nc franchise to come and re-clean parts of my carpet. He was supposed to be here an hour or so ago. He would not have to come back had the carpet been cleaned properly the first time. There are still small stains on my bedroom carpet and a huge makeup stain on the carpet in the upstairs loft area. I will never employ this company again. Going back to Stanley Steamer, I think.

Please...please...please! Stay away from this company! They are way too expensive and unscrupulous, which unfortunately I found out after they performed "emergency" services while using scare tactics, making me feel I did not have the luxury of comparing prices - afterward learning they double the price for EVERYTHING!). The owner, Dan, totally took advantage of the knowledge that I was recently faced with living alone, and leading me to believe he will be able work with you based on what your homeowners policy would cover - but just planning to use that information to price the job. When all was said and done, he led me to believe that the cleanup AND carpet replacement would be easily covered with the insurance coverage, but in reality only covered the cleanup. PLUS carpet replacement was to cost $3000+. NOTE: The pricing received later from several local competitors was half the cost, and they indicated they work toward saving your carpet, if possible, and then will re-install. After trying to work with them and negotiate a settlement for a year, with no success, they do not budge and insist on ripping you off. Totally disgusting! Learn from my mistake and STAY AWAY!

This is a very unprofessional business. Watch out for the 'bait and switch'.

I got an estimate for carpet cleaning from Mike O. Based on his estimate, I made an appointment for him to do the work. I have a big house and it took 3 hours. Since I was moving, there was no furniture in the house. My SHOCK came when he handed me the bill. He had charged $100 MORE than he quoted. He denied that he ever gave me an estimate! I paid the invoice amount because I didn't have anything in writing showing the previous price he quoted and I didn't have time to argue with him.

Since the carpet was wet, I wasn't able to walk room to room and inspect the work. The following day (Sunday), I inspected the rooms. In all he did an acceptable job; I would grade it an 8 out of 10; however the LAST room that he cleaned was undoubtedly the worst. There were visible splatters still out in the open! This was obviously a rush job. Even the 'hose strokes' showing in the carpet were eratic and didn't go all way up to the base board.

I called him on Monday to schedule a time for him to come back out. He sounded like he was agreeable to that, and told me he would call me back. He NEVER called back. I've called him at least 4 times since then. He plays games like pretending he can't hear me then he hangs up and won't answer when I call back. I've left several voice messages, but he never returns my calls.

This is very unprofessional behavior. This is the old 'bait and switch'. He knew when he walked into the house this job would be more than he had estitmated. He should have taken the time to walk me thru and explain WHY he would have to charge more. Then we would have agreed on a cost or I would have told him "NO WAY".

Chem Dry ruined our carpet. The technician ripped the carpet while cleaning and admitted the mistake to my husband. Chem dry sent out someone to repair it. This person claimed that our dog ripped the carpet and then proceeded to "fix it". It looked terrible after he fixed it. I waited months to hear back from Chem Dry. Finally today they told me that there is nothing they can do to fix it and blamed it on our dog. There are no other problems like this on our carpet. If it was our dog he would of done that to the rest of the carpet. It happens to be torn right where the Chem Dry company was spot cleaning. This company should be shut down!

Dry cleaned our drapes onsite--and provided invoice and charged card $100. more. Didn't find out until my card statement reflected such. I called the firm--Tracy, who i originally contacted to set appt, verified a credit would be given and it has not. BEWARE of charging without getting a verified slip. I continue to call---and have called more than 10 times since . . .

We called them to clean our living room furniture. Which is very expensive Velour and they used the wrong process to clean it and now it is ruined. We paid them $ 140.00 for the cleaning.

Carpet & upholstery cleaning I called the same company, that we dealt with last year & booked an appointment. They sent Action ChemDry instead to do the job. The cleaner decided that this was a restoration cleaning, charged me extra for pet stain removal in 5 rooms(now I note that their website has free spot removal with any cleaning) & wouldn't guarantee stain removal. Cleaner does not move any furniture whatsoever, does not ask for help moving anything except wires(?), did not clean area rug under dining room table or carpet under SMALL end table. FYI I was on the premises, staying out of areas being cleaned. Many areas do not appear clean, edges near baseboards dirty, nor did the so called enzyme spray do much to clean. Note that this cleaner charged me BEFORE job commenced, & absolutely refused a personal cheque, which in retrospect was a bad decision on my part as neither my partner nor I are happy with job.Called company back to complain & had to schedule another app't to fix deficiencies in cleaning. The tech scrubbed at a few spots, refused to do anything more, saying the carpet was too worn. Refused to give discount given by booking agent.
Rug is still dirty in numerous places.

I too have been a 'victim' of Garity's Chem-Dry and so-called owner/rep named Tim. He was easy to contact to place an order with them and apply several up-charges, but when the teenagers came to clean our carpets, they were quick to leave and left us with an invoice with no contact information on it. They offered a 30 day re-do free of charge, but when I called Tim (after struggling to find his # again since it was not provided on the invoice), he never returned phone call. Needless to say, the cleaning was performed very poorly, and while we paid for protection (scotchguard-like application), it clearly was not performed. These two teenage boys who performed the cleaning spent only 30 minutes in our home of 2727 sq. ft. We have disputed the charge with our credit card company and expect to get a full refund.

We had a beautiful area rug that had been cleaned last year, 2006, by another cleaner, with no problems.
This year we had visitors with a small dog that urinated on one corner of the rug. I was able to remove the stain but there was an odor that I could not remove.

Nov., 2007, I contacted a local rug cleaning company that specialized in removing pet odor. A worker came to our home, soaked the specific corner of the rug with a chemical, asked for towels to place under the corner and told us to wait 3 or 4 days until the rug was dry. Once dry, the rug was badly stained. I contacted the company and they said they would send the worker out again to correct the problem. The worker came and once again saturated the corner of the rug with the chemicals, asked for towels to place underneath and told us to wait 3 or 4 days for the rug to dry. Once dry, the rug was even more stained and also badly faded. The owner sent the worker out for a third time and the rug was removed from our home and taken to the place of business.

The owner phoned and told us that they had sent pictures to their home office who said that the problem was a ph unbalance (?) due to the fact that the rug had at one time been under water. When we contacted the home office they said they had no record of the company contacting them and no photo. The owner did return our money that we had paid for the cleaning but refused to turn the matter over to their insurance company and would not tell us the name of their insurance company We have a bill of sale showing where we bought this carpet and the amount paid, $715.15. We are at a loss as to what to do about this situation. It does not seem right that we should be out a lovely rug and have to replace it at our expense. Surely they must have insurance against this improper use of their chemicals.

We called them to clean our living room furniture
Which is very expensive Valour and they used the wrong process to clean it and now it is ruined. We paid them $ 140.00 for the cleaning. The owner's name is Tim and he refuses to do anything about it.

Regards: Bernard A. Brisson
22417 Marine St.
Eastpointe, MI. 48021
Phone: [protected]