The Story of Petrichor®

The journey to becoming Petrichor® began in 2006 when Joe Torrez had seen a relative who had once worked as a carpet cleaning technician in New York start his own carpet cleaning business in California. It was a basic portable box machine that he was using as well as a floor scrubber. Joe at the time was working in the construction industry as a ready mix driver and had a slight interest in carpet cleaning but was satisfied with his income. Joe borrowed the machine one time to clean his and Michelle's townhome in Ontario, Ca and accomplished cleaning the carpets, not really to the standards of what you know today but it got finished. Joe was exhausted at the end of that and never really thought of him doing this as a business. As the economy began to shift into Joe working less hours at his ready mix driver job. He decided to invest in buying a similar portable machine. be bought with an income tax return from Chem-Pak in San Bernardino Ca. During his down time at there ready mix job he studied carpet cleaning in order to become the best at his new venture. His early customers were working for family, friends, and later started advertising on Craigslist. Joe would commute from Beaumont, Ca to Ontario, Ca to work at his ready mix job, and with his truck loaded up with his carpet cleaning equipment he would clean carpets for leads he would get on Craigslist on his way home.

The original name of Joe's carpet cleaning business was Eco-Pro Carpet Care and the unique selling feature was that we only used soap free, non-toxic, cleaning solutions.

In 2011 things had really slowed down at the ready mix job, but Joe had established a small client base to help keep his mortgage paid, and despite having to face bankruptcy he kept pushing that carpet cleaning wand in order to stay a float and provide for his family. Before the economic downturn he and his wife Michelle were pregnant with their third child Jacob. Joe after delivery of Jacob had convinced Michelle to leave her job at Marie Calendars as a server in Ontario, Ca and be a stay at home mom and help with the business that also had a heartbeat. Michelle was now the voice of; at the time Eco-Pro Carpet Care. Customers absolutely loved her and gave our lil carpet cleaning business a huge boost of gaining market share.

Things were not easy in the beginning with constant reinvestment into our business and also raising three children that at the time were 10, 8, and newborn. but Joe and Michelle had no option for failure. They both took their strengths and worked together to advance to the next level of buying a van and a truckmount to catch up to the big guys in town.