Twice a year the streets around Wesleyan fill with cars packed to the roof lining. Move-in in the autumn, move-out in May, and both do the same thing to the least-inspected part of a car.
The cabin gets noticed because you sit in it. The boot does not.
What actually goes in there
Furniture with feet that have stood on a dorm floor all year. Bedding that has been in a damp basement. A mini fridge that was defrosted in a hurry, or not at all. Cleaning products with lids that were not designed to be transported on their side. Shoes.
Nothing on that list is unusual and none of it seems serious. The problem is that it all goes into a shallow carpeted tray with a lid over it, and then the lid stays shut for months.
Under the floor is the part that matters
Most boot floors lift out, and underneath is either a spare wheel well or a storage tray. It is the lowest point in the car and it is where liquid ends up.
If something leaked during the move — and something usually did — it did not stay on the boot carpet. It went through, down the sides, and pooled in the well. There is no ventilation down there and no reason for anyone to look, so it sits.
That is the source of a very high proportion of the mystery smells we get called about in June, and it is the first place we check on any car that smells and looks clean.
Lift your boot floor. If there is standing water, or a tide line, or the carpet backing is damp to a knuckle, that is your answer and it has probably been there since May.
Grit is the other half
Furniture feet and shoes carry a surprising volume of grit into a boot, and it works down into the carpet exactly the way it does in a footwell. Then everything you put in afterwards grinds it in.
On a hatchback or an estate this matters more than people expect, because the boot carpet is often thinner than the cabin carpet and the load floor sits directly on it.
What we do
The boot gets the same treatment as the cabin — carpet lifted where it lifts, the well cleaned out, and hot-water extraction through the boot carpet rather than a hoover over the top of it. That is part of our interior detail at $175 and our full detail at $275.
If the well has held water long enough to grow something, ozone at $149 handles what remains once it is dry.
The timing
Straight after the move, not in September. A wet boot sealed through a hot Connecticut summer is the worst possible sequence, and the difference between cleaning it in May and cleaning it in August is usually the difference between a clean and a clean plus odour treatment.
We come to you anywhere in Middletown, including street parking around campus. Call (860) 775-7572 or book online.