My letter to Sherwin Williams

Dear sirs;
In June of 2010 your Auburn floor covering store was contracted by Reid Real Estate to replace the carpet in a home at *******. In late August my family and I moved into the home. We were shown a paid contract with your company showing not only new carpet, but 1800 square feet of "Pet Seal". After we moved in we noticed a strong odor coming from a bedroom. I think the kids spilled some water? When it started smelling I attempted to clean the carpet. All of my attempts made it worse. After being in the house about a month, I finally used a blacklight and could find nothing on the surface of the carpet. I pulled the carpet back and found urine stained bare wood under the carpet. I then pulled up the carpet in the other rooms and found the same thing. I did find some sealer applied in the small hall closet downstairs. I contacted the Auburn store. They assured me they would send someone out to take care of the pet seal. When I mentioned how bad the one room smelled they told me that carpet would be replaced.

The young man who came to do the work was very charming. He said he had in fact seen pictures of how badly damaged the floor in this home had been, and it was the most disgusting thing he had ever seen in his time installing carpet. He then proceeded to apply an oil based sealant to the areas of the floor where I had pulled the carpet back. Not once did he pull up any significant area of additional carpet. In fact, after sealing 1/2 of a room he informed me he was ready to re-stretch the carpet. After he moved into another room I pulled as much more of the carpet back in the first room as I could. After the first couple of rooms he started laying the pad and carpet back down before it was dry. I pulled as much carpet back as I could, but there was only so much I could do, I'm not that strong, and where the rooms joined or the carpet went through a doorway...

The doorways presented a challenge. I have a long hallway with 5 rooms and a set of stairs off of it. When I asked him how he would deal with the hallway he told me his only option was to either pull the carpet away from the wall and spray what he could get to (a few inches), or leave me with an "ugly seam". He was very adamant that he did not want to do that to my carpet. He only brought one can of spray sealant, which was exhausted quickly. He then borrowed a paint brush and applied some sealant that way. The areas around the doorways are the areas with the worst pet damage. Eventually I took the brush while he was rolling sealant in other rooms and got areas I could get to that he had not addressed.

He tried to convince me that the carpet in the bedroom that had been most damaged did not need to be replaced. He swore he could not smell any pet odor coming from it. It stunk. I managed to insist he replace it.

The original carpet strips, which I assure you had pet damage, including rusted tack strips, were randomly replaced.. or not. I am concerned about the carpet that lay on damaged urine soaked tack strips. Some of the odor was absorbed by the carpet and there are rust stains along the edges. When I asked the young man how he was going to deal with that his solution was to apply sealer over the top of the tack strips. He assured me this would deal with the issue.

I realize the home had pet damage, I have applied 2 coats of an oil based sealant not only to the walls but the ceiling as well. I have removed the baseboards, wood trim, some ducting, and vent covers. I have also had the 1100 square feet of hardwood floor sanded down and resealed. I should not have had to worry about the carpet. I was confident when I saw who had done the work that it was done well. Instead, I am just grateful I have the hardwood floor downstairs, so I did not have to move entirely out of my home so that some of the pet seal could actually be applied.

All of these stopgap measures, which may or may not be effective, (I'm still waiting for the chemical/paint/sealant smell to dissipate) would not have been needed had the gentlemen hired to seal the house initially actually done the job they were paid to do.