If you’re anything like me, then you may have spent your toddler years crawling/walking about the floor never thinking another moment about the cleanliness of the very thing you were smashing your face into. (Ok, I admit, I wasn’t exactly the most graceful toddler.) So for the concerned parents out there who are advocates in protecting your beloved children from the daily grime of the dirty world that is tracked into your lovely homes, meet Apex Carpet Cleaning.
A Clean Start
Beginning in August of 2010, Dustin and Teresa Pancheri first started their carpet cleaning business after Dustin spent three years helping a friend clean carpets. As a full-time factory rep for snowmobiles and a freelance writer for snowmobile-related publications, Pancheri always had a diversity of investments operating on the philosophy that a person shouldn’t have all their eggs in one basket. “I feel like you always should diversify. The more I got into it [the carpet cleaning business], the more I was fascinated with it. It wouldn’t have been an opportunity had I not been looking for it,” he says.
An Education in Clean
Apex Carpet Cleaning uses steam and hot water combined with chemicals that agitate stains and dirt to pull them out. Since steam is a natural cleaner, a disinfectant, and it carries dirt—steam does three things that chemicals alone can’t do.
The chemicals we use are based on a PH scale, and depending on the stain, this determines what chemicals to use in order to raise or lower the PH,” Pancheri says. “Once removed, we then take the area of the carpet stain back to a neutral PH.” Who knew that your chemistry teacher’s voice would still ring in your head after all these years as you watched the dirt rise from your carpet into carpet cleaning machines?
According to Pancheri, cleaning carpets is much the like maintenance of a car. Like anything else, you get what you pay for with carpets.
Over the past few years, Pancheri has seen carpets that range from tie-dyed, to patchwork carpets, and to rooms with over $50,000 worth of carpet shipped from overseas. On the other end of the spectrum, Pancheri recalls a time when he was asked to clean a carpet that hadn’t been cleaned in 25 years.
Living the Dream
Growing up, Pancheri plastered his walls with the dreams of becoming the world’s greatest motor-sports superstar. “My dream was to be a test rider for a dirt bike or snowmobiling company. I would plaster pics all over my bedroom wall to the point where it was my wallpaper. I wanted to be that guy in those pictures.”
In asking how his passion for snowmobiles and motor cross carries over to carpet cleaning, Pancheri explains, “My passion is creating more horsepower, and that has carried over to carpet cleaning machines believe it or not. I would take machines apart and modify them to better address the issues that concerned me. Cleaning takes too long so I’ve loved the personal challenge to do it better than the other guys.”
The Future of Clean
Although they’ve already expanded into the cleaning business, there are talks of hardwood and tile cleaning. They hope to offer these services within the next year and a half.
We try to keep it so that we are only scheduled 2–3 days out, and we want to keep it that way. I don’t want to grow so fast it’s at the sacrifice of our ability to do our business well,” says Pancheri. “Quality needs to be first over time and money, and since referrals are critical in this type of business, it’s all about leaving an impression.”
Apex Carpet Cleaning
3090 Dallin Dr., Idaho Falls
520-2042
www.apexcleaningsolutions.com