When I was a carpet cleaner, there was nothing I hated more than working in the rain. I distinctly remember hauling my portable carpet cleaner up three flights of stairs on a 108º day in 2015, and I don’t feel an ounce of hostility about it, but I still bristle every time I think about any of the many, many jobs I had to do in the pouring rain because the client refused to reschedule.

Clients would call when the weather was sunny and warm – perfect for cleaning carpet – to schedule an appointment for the following week when it was going to be raining. I would point out that it was going to rain the day they wanted me to clean their carpet, and sometimes they would choose another day, but very often, that was the only day they could possibly have their carpet cleaned.

When I called a client to confirm an appointment the day before, and rain was forecasted for the next day, I tried to get them to reschedule, but most of the time, they refused. So, I cleaned a lot of carpet in the pouring rain. Then, during the weeks when it was raining, my phone wouldn’t ring. Carpet cleaning wasn’t even on their minds because it was raining. Huh? 🤷‍♂️

The Man Didn’t Care If I Cleaned Carpet In the Rain

When I worked for Chem-Dry, they sure as fuck didn’t care if we worked in the rain. They weren’t canceling jobs for any reason. The owner, Bill, hired a guy because he had ten years of experience as a carpet installer. He thought he could add carpet sales and installation to his list of services and make the new guy, Kanan, install it. Kanan, of course, wanted to be a carpet cleaner because it seemed easier than installing carpet, and his body hurt from the years of abuse from installing flooring.

One winter day in 2006, Bill scheduled a carpet installation and told the customer that we could install the carpet even if it was raining. He told Kanan that he could roll the carpet out in the garage to make his cuts. Kanan got to the job only to find that the garage was filled with shit, so there was no room to unroll the carpet. He called Bill and told him they would have to reschedule, but Bill wasn’t having it. He wanted Kanan to finish the job that day. Kanan asked how Bill expected him to install the carpet in the rain when there was nowhere to lay out the carpet. Bill replied, “Well, how did you do it when you were a carpet installer?”

Kanan yelled into the phone, “We didn’t install carpet in the fucking rain!”

I was so giddy when he told me that later that day. Bill was a fucking moron, and getting stiff and yelling at him was the only thing he responded to.

Be Your Own Boss, They Said…

So, when I started my own business and had the latitude to make my own schedule, I began checking the weather every day. If a customer wanted me to come clean their carpet on a day that rain was forecast, I would inform them that it was supposed to rain that day. Most people had their heads screwed on right and realized the stupidity of cleaning carpets in the rain, but there were some who either didn’t care or, didn’t have a choice.

I could never understand it. Why would you want your carpet cleaned in the rain? In 2019, I showed up at a client’s house to clean her carpet in the pouring rain. I tried to get her to reschedule by informing her that the carpet was going to take a very long time to dry, but she just looked at me like I was a fucking idiot. I went out to my van and recorded a video about my thoughts on cleaning carpet in the rain. You can hear the rain falling on the roof of the van.

2017: The Winter Of Carpet Cleaning In the Rain

2017 seemed to be the worst year for carpet cleaning in the rain. It was an unusually wet winter despite not being an El Niño year. I had more customers keep their appointments despite the rain than I ever had before. One woman even had me clean her patio furniture in the pouring rain. Her fucking patio furniture! Why does your patio furniture need to be cleaned in the pouring rain? That was the closest I ever came to telling a customer to go fuck themselves and storm off the job. I went out to my van and furiously wrote this diatribe:

If I’ve done anything that sucked more ass than cleaning someone’s patio furniture in the rain I honestly can’t remember it. Seriously people, your priorities are all out of whack! Will your 16 year olds birthday really be ruined if you have dirty patio furniture? You need to find Jesus. Not that ridiculous Jesus that says that you need to buy your pastor a Bentley or the Jesus that says that the gay community is the root of all of your problems but the Jesus that was talking about the rich man and the camel and the needle. Did you ever see the video where the garbage man rips the mail box out of the ground and throws in in the garbage truck? I feel you brother. 

Pissed Off And Soaking Wet

That still paled in comparison to a job I would do just a few weeks later. It was on Friday, February 17, 2017. I had just one job on the books that day and an easy one at that. It was a vacant office in a single-story building. Ordinarily, I would love to close out the week with a job like this, but not on this day. On this day, it rained harder than I had seen it rain in years. I tried to cancel the job, but the property manager wouldn’t budge. I begged, pleaded, reasoned, bitched, whined, and complained, but the new tenant was moving in the next day, so the carpet had to be cleaned right then.

It wasn’t just that it was pouring rain outside from the moment I arrived at the job until I left. It wasn’t because it took me twenty minutes on each job to get set up to clean – that’s twenty minutes of walking to and from the van. Twenty minutes in any amount of rain is enough to completely soak you down to your underwear. It was because, on top of everything else, my extractor broke down on the job, so I had to spend time trying to get the machine started again in the rain.

I’m Only Human

I blamed the property manager. Her stubborn unwillingness to reschedule this fucking job made it take three times longer than necessary. When I finished, she had the gall to ask me when the carpet would be dry. “Never!” I snapped. “It’s pouring rain outside, humidity is 100%. This carpet is never going to dry.” 

The rain stopped shortly after I finished the job. That is the one thing I can count on when doing a job in the rain. It will only rain while I’m working. When I got home, I took a long hot shower, contemplating my poor life choices. Then, I wrapped myself up in a blanket on the sofa, intent on not leaving the house again until Monday. 

I’m Finally Dry

My overarching goal ever since that day has been not to leave the house when it’s raining. I’m so grateful to be in a place in my life where I don’t have to leave the house on rainy days like today. I know I sound like a whiny little bitch who’s afraid to get wet, but that’s not what this is about. Just last winter, I spent the afternoon walking in the rain and photographing the rising arroyo because I wanted to. What I’m talking about is choices.

I’ve never had a job where I had a choice about whether I was going to work in the rain or not. I’ve never even had a job where I had the option to call in sick. And even when I started my own business, and I didn’t have any fuckwit asshole telling me what to do, I still had to go to work in the rain. Now, I can stay inside on a rainy day like I always wished I could when I was soaked through to my underwear, cursing my clients, and wishing I had chosen some other path in my life, and it’s everything I always thought it could be.