Saturday 19 July 2008

Clearning curtains

We are moving out of the flat where we have lived for 4 years, and we must do various cleanings.

One of them is to dry-clean curtains. We have two sets of curtains (4 pieces in total). They are not luxurious curtains, and after more than 5 years of use (when we moved in, they were already used for more than 1 year), it looks better buying new ones than cleaning, but, as the landlord wants us to dry-clean them, so we did.

There are two dry cleaners in my area. First, I decided to get the quote. The first dry-cleaner asked me how large were they and if they were lined, quoted £56. The second one asked me how much was the weight. I did not know that, but she said it is £5 per kilo. I guessed they should not weigh more than 10kg, so I went to the latter shop.

In fact, the weight was only 4kg, and I paid £20. Less than a half of the price quoted by the first shop.

It is possible, even plausible, that the first shop does the better job, but all I need is a receipt to prove that the curtains are professionally cleaned, so it does not matter so much what they do.

It really is important to shop around.