Mohawk Flooring SmartStrand Deceptive Advertising! Chatsworth ga

Eighteen years after moving into our home, we decided to remodel. The only reason were were purchasing new carpeting was because our old contractor-grade berber carpet wasn't going to match the new tile we chose. The carpet was a little worn, sure, after 18 years, but nothing else was wrong with it.

After viewing Mohawk's SmartStrand Zoo Challenge video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v+UJ_z8qiELgE), we decided to go with that carpet since we have multiple pets (9 cats, 4 dogs). What could be better, right? Hippos, giraffes, and elephants living on that brand of carpeting for 3 weeks and the CARPET WINS!

During the first 6 months after the SmartStrand was installed, there were a few pet accidents on the carpeting. Immediately upon seeing the stains, out comes my trusty Hoover carpet shampooer to clean it up. Hooray! The stains came out. But --- the carpet seams started delaminating (coming apart). The top layer of carpet was separating from the carpet backing.

I contacted our contractor who had the original installer come look at it to see if it could be repaired. He said not, it was a warranty issue. Our contractor then contacted Mohawk and filed a claim for us. It took 9 weeks for Mohawk to have an "independent" carpet inspector look at our carpet. The inspector's report stated "pet urine, left unattended, can damage carpet in several ways. Moisture can weaken the bond between the layers of carpet, allowing separation or delamination of the backing material to separate. Seam areas can be particularly vulnerable to damage and can separate."

Mohawk denied our claim, and their Consumer Affairs people were downright rude and uncaring when we called to contest their "ruling." I told them we decided to purchase this carpeting after watching the video, and they said the purpose of the video was only to see if the stains came up - not to test the carpet to see if it would delaminate. The elephant/giraffe/rhino pee and poop supposedly stayed on the carpet for THREE WEEKS without being cleaned (my animals' accidents were NEVER left unattended for that long), and the video doesn't say word one about the condition of the carpet, other than the stains came out.

Googling their warranty page (http://mohawkflooring.com/customer_care/warranties.aspx) will show that "stains" and "pet" are separate columns. SmartStrand carries a LIFETIME warranty against pet urine! It appears they purposely write their warranty page vaguely, so they can manipulate the meaning and categories however they choose, so they are able to deny more claims.

We told them we are going to contact an attorney and they basically told us, go ahead. We'll see whose pockets are deeper.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER again will we purchase any type of Mohawk flooring. $4,000 lost after only 9 months of having this "warranted-for-life-against-nearly-anything" supposedly upgraded best carpet on the market.