Alex, I'll take "Renting a Carpet Cleaner" for $100...

What is:

Something I will never do again for the rest of my life.

Actually, it was only $39, plus another $30 for the cleaning solution and anti-foaming agent. But what a miserable berkeleying job.

We really had no choice. I came home this morning after a 14 hour night and the wife insisted that we trim the dog's nails, which admittedly was long overdue. The dog doesn't seem to mind having it done, but she refuses to stay still. In spite of being incredible careful and conscious of the hazards, I clipped one too short. Within minutes, the entire first floor of the house looked like a crime scene.

So I went downtown, rented a machine and bought the chemicals. It did a commendable job on the sixteen year old, blood soaked light gray carpet, but again, I must reiterate, what a miserable berkeleying job. It took much longer than I expected, my back is killing me and my hands will surely be blistered tomorrow.

I took a break in the afternoon to run a 5K race through the woods and to be repeatedly stung by white faced hornets. Surprisingly, neither of those things made the remaining job any better.

Stanley Steamer charges $99 per room, and midway, I would have gladly paid twice that and eaten the cost of the rental.

Never again.

Made that mistake once.  Now Stanley comes every spring and does my living room.  $99 they come in, move all the furniture and leave.  It's well worth the price difference.

I was that guy, we turned a job down once, the pigs owned a new puppy. Other than that our machine would get it cleaner faster.

Within the carpet cleaning industry, Stanley Steemer routinely gets the worst reviews from peers.  Next time you're shopping try to find a local owner/operator with lots of great reviews.  He'll do even better than SS.

In reply to Crxpilot :

Honestly, I do not care, as long as someone else is doing it.

I've used the rental cleaner also and I agree it was a misirable job. However, I have used a carpet cleaner from one of the big sweeper companies (I think Hoover) designed for home use and it was not that bad plus it cleaned better than the rental. 

My parents are on their second residential shampooer. I can't remember how long the first one lasted. For a once a year job I'm not certain buying it came out ahead of rentals. Said carpets are now being replaced with mid grade laminate. 

Given the option, berk carpet. 

At 24 years of age I bought my first house - full carpet through out so I rented the machine and cleaned the entire house before we moved in.

At 55 years of age I have yet to ever rent that stupid machine - last summer we pulled out all the builders grade crappy carpet in our second house and had hardwood installed.  

You bringing this up reminds me of the bad memories of those rental machines.    

Isaiah 46:9a Remember the former things of old......

Sorry to come across as an ass, but why in tarnation did you trim claws indoors? I trim my own on the back porch