Another Trilogy

On this blog, I don't actually try to do things in threes, but it just seems to turn out that way, like here and here. And anyway, three is such a nice, neat little number. So today I have another triplet for you, this time, of companies that have gone out of their way to make us happy with our home-related products. Lately I've been amazed at how willing a store has been to stand by their product and offer us concessions when things have gone wrong. I think it's definitely worth clicking on the "contact us" link on a website and calling or emailing when something doesn't go right. You might not get anywhere, but then again, you might be surprised.

1. The first is a pet odor remover called Anti-Icky Poo that saved me a few years ago when one of our cats peed in my brand new car on the way to the vet. It has active bacteria and enzymes that eat away at the residue and actually remove the horrible horrible odor. Last October, one cat had an "accident" (at least that's what we're calling it, in the hopes that it wasn't deliberate) on our new blue rug. We applied Anti-Icky Poo--the same bottle we had kept for 4 years since the car incident. We thought it had worked but as our house started to warm up this spring, we started smelling pee again. So we removed the rug and the rug pad to the breeze-way and reapplied a large quantity of the stuff. It didn't work (we already knew from experience that standard stain/odor removers like Resolve don't do anything). Since Anti-Icky Poo contains living organisms, we figured that they had died and that the stuff was inactive, but we couldn't find an expiration date anywhere on the bottle. D called the company to ask and the woman explained that it was supposed to last for at least 5 years, and that since it had only been 4, they would take responsibility and send us a new bottle free of charge. Not only did they send us a new bottle, but they sent us a whole jug (the original, old stuff is on the left and the new one is on the right). Not bad, considering we spend $10 on this stuff 4 years ago. And even better--this time it actually worked!

2. The next success story is from Casabella, which makes a microfiber duster that we love. I accidentally snapped it in two when trying to shake out some of the water the first time I cleaned it. After sending a photo to Casabella, they sent us a new duster that was even better than the first, with an extension to reach above book shelves and clean lamps and ceiling fans!

3. Last is some impressive customer service from Crate and Barrel, after we noticed a deep split in our dining room table. We called the store we ordered it from (I think having ordered from a store instead of online gave us an edge, since we could talk to them instead of the random 1-800 people) and emailed them a photo of the crack. They agreed immediately to replace the table and scheduled delivery within the week. About a week later, we had a completely new table. I have no idea what would have happened if they did not stock the same model anymore, but hopefully we won't ever have to find out. The seams between the wood on our new table look a lot tighter than on the old one.

I'm really impressed that so many of these companies have been willing to stand by their products, even in a few cases (the cleaner and the duster) where it would have been easy to just tell us to suck it up and buy a new one. It cost us very little time and effort and we ended up with something that worked. Sometimes it's worth it to talk to someone and ask if there's anything they can do!