So, here’s a first for my blog: I’m endorsing a local rug-cleaning company that provides an absolutely stellar service: Luv-a-Rug, headed up by Steve “Dusty” Roberts, has perfected a device called a Rug Badger, which cleans rugs like nothing else.

I found Luv-a-Rug through the company blog, written by Ruglover Mary. Without the blog, I’m not sure I would have paid more attention to this rug cleaning company than any other. But because of the blog, I thought, “Hmm, I think I’ll take a closer look at this.”  (And I found Ruglover Mary‘s blog in the first place because I make it my business to be on the alert for local area blogs to include in MetroCascade, our blog and news aggregator.)

When I called the store, I got Mary on the phone. (I felt like I already knew her!)

And then of course there’s Steve “Dusty” Roberts.

That’s a photo of Steve (“Dusty”) on the right, taken from an Australian Clean Expo site.

Steve and his Rug Badger have “badgered” their way across North America and beyond – it’s another one of those “little” Victoria BC success stories that make you go “wow!” Here‘s a page on the Rug Badger site full of testimonials – it spans many different locales.

When I was little, my mother used to beat rugs “out back.” You had to get out of her way when it was time for this onerous chore, which happened about twice a year.  When we lived in Duesseldorf, the twice-yearly rug beating meant going to the courtyard behind our apartment building; when we moved (briefly) to the sticks, it happened behind the house. In either case, the work (and it was hard labor) involved hanging the rug over an iron bar and then beating the crap out of it with a wicker rug beater.

This is what the “machine” of the day looked like – human-powered, and just awful to do.

When “Dusty” came to my house to pick up the rugs I wanted cleaned, he told me that when he was a little boy, his grandmother had let him try beating her rugs clean with one of those wicker rug beaters. But not only was the work impossibly hard, he was also covered in dust in no time, choking for air. “There’s got to be a better way,” he thought.

Many years later, he studied the existing rug beater-style machines out there and decided to build his own. BADGER stands for “Bugs, Allergens,Dirt, and Grit Extracted from Rug,” and it works. (There’s a video demonstration here.)

If you live in Victoria, you can use Luv-a-Rug and meet “Dusty” himself (internet fame as Rug Badger promoter notwithstanding, “Dusty” still cleans rugs, personally picking them up at your place and returning them). If you don’t live here, do yourself a favor and make sure your rug cleaner uses a Rug Badger. Or else hand him one of those wicker rug beaters. Anything else just won’t do as good a job.

(Full disclosure: I’m not getting paid in any way to write this, no discount on my cleaning bill or anything like that. I’m just really happy with how well my rugs turned out – they look fantastic. And I’m not turning this blog into a product or service endorsements site either, but I just love this Rug Badger story and that Steve Roberts is taking his invention/ modification around the world like this. Way to go, Steve!)

Posted: 03|29|10 at 11:56 pm. Filed under: business, just_so, local_not_global.
Tags: rug_badger
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