A friend called the other day with a question regarding a situation with a customer. He had installed an inexpensive, nylon cut-and- loop product into a home about two weeks prior. The customer called to say she thinks she has a problem with the carpet. Every time she turns the faucet on, she notices a cat urine odor.

The customer called the water authority and explained the dilemma, since the water seemed to be the catalyst to the odor. The person she spoke with asked if she had recently had new carpet installed. He then told her the smell is from the fumes of chlorine in the water mixing with the Scotchgard on the carpet.

I think the guy at the water authority must have read somewhere, people are stupid and will believe anything if you are from a municipal authority and tell them convincingly enough. Either that, or he got into the chlorine himself and fried part of his brain.

How ignorant can one human being be? I’d like to smack him in the back of the head for being so stupid. Is he crazy? Wouldn’t it make sense if you turn on the water and there is an odor, the odor is coming from the water?

Since the carpet itself doesn’t smell, the installers didn’t report any odor and the consumer did not report odor until two weeks after the installation, wouldn’t it stand to reason the carpet isn’t the source?

SMELL OF URINE IN WATER IS BLAMED ON THE SCOTCHGUARD IN THE CARPET

What I want to know is, how the genius at the water authority came up with this ludicrous idea. Scotchgard, once it is dry, has no odor; and when it gets wet it doesn’t smell, either.

For 14 years I owned a carpet and upholstery cleaning business. We applied hundreds of gallons of Scotchgard on carpet, furniture and the new velour interiors of cars, and never once did we have a complaint about the topical treatment causing the odor.

After the initial shock of this inquiry wore off, I informed the dealer what to do to prove the carpet was not the problem. This should be done in any odor concern.

Get a good-sized sample of the carpet from scrap in the consumer’s home. That means, you’ll have to make a personal visit there. Put the broadloom into a plastic garbage bag and seal it tightly. Then, get a sample of whatever substance you suspect is the source of the odor, in this case the water, and put it in a new, plastic bottle.

While you’re at the house, smell the carpet and then, smell the water. If the carpet doesn’t smell and the water does, you’ve found the cause.

The carpet you have in the bag you’ll put in a warm place for about 48 hours. The water in the bottle you’ll leave at room temperature for 48 hours, as well. At the end of that time, put your head into the bag to determine whether there’s an odor.

If you smell a foul odor, the carpet is the problem. The only time this may happen is when the latex in the carpet is sour, and that will smell like urine or theinside of a zoo. Next, smell the water or the other suspect substance. If the carpet doesn’t smell and the other substance does, it is the other substance. This is not advanced chemistry.

Let the woman in your store smell the stuff too. Women usually have a keener sense of smell than do men. A consensus of noses will tell what, if anything is causing the odor. In this case, I can assure you it is not a mixture of the Scotchgard on the carpet and the chlorine in the water.

What you should get from this is, people can be confused by sources they think are reliable. If the carpet doesn’t smell initially, it’s not going to smell when you turn the water on. And, if it does, it’s the water, not the carpet. I’ve got to give the water authority guy credit for creativity, though. And the stupid stories just keep comin’.