Since you use peat pellets and I use them too I'll tell you what I do. This breaks so many rules 85% of the people here wouldn't do what I do no way no how. I germinate in peat pellets after putting the hydrated things in the microwave long enough to raise steam. They go in small trays from cheap frozen dinners that don't go nuts and warp when nuked. The tray sits over extremely high humidity 75 degree bottom water heat. I flood the tray every single day of it's working life, draining off what doesn't get absorbed within a few seconds. Before the true leaves even come out, the plants are in full sun. When they "look right", which is hardly big at all, they go into any sort of disposable cup I have, each with a couple of holes made with a hot pokey thingie, with any sort of dirt from a bed that looks like it's compost-y. I leave the netting around the pellet alone since rule number one two and three is never never ever mess with the roots. That bed dirt gets nuked too. Then the whole shebang goes into the ground eventually, no bothering about bigger cup sizes and fertilizer and lamps and engineered dirt. Make that 95%, but it works. This year I had four or five un-seedlinged pellets and zero damping off. Did I mention the fish tank?

You say "even with good tenants, they will never take care of the rental like they would if they owned it". I see this, over and over again on the various forums. There is also a flip side to this.. I also see, over and over again people who put the bare minimum...cheapest materials, possible into rentals. I've lived in my house for the last 14+ years. We rent. When we moved in everything in the house was the cheapest possible builders grade or less. The carpet was avocado green shag.. let's not forget this was 1992 not the 70's, when we moved in... the kitchen floor was cheap vinyl... harvest gold. The "yard", if you can call it that was a series of overgrown weed patches... not fenced...there was fencing on both sides of the house... neighbors fencing. I asked the landlord if we could put in new carpet...he said as long as the replacement is of a comparative quality, ok. I nearly choked...it would be pretty hard to NOT surpass that. We put brand new carpeting in the LR and BR... my kitchen is small..in fact, the whole house is small.. tiny, actually. 600 sq. feet. We put new flooring in the kitchen and bathroom.. that alone, cost more than the carpet.. IIRC, the kitchen and bath floors costs over 900 bucks.. We pulled out all the weed patches.... sodded they tiny yard and side entrance yard.. put in a fence .. changed out the cheesy, cheap outdoor lights.. they cost 10 bucks, apiece. The ones we bought cost 85 bucks, each. I just, finally, got around to redoing the bathroom.. I painted, added new base molding, crown molding and a chair rail type molding. We would have replaced the cheesy, cheap MDF vanity except that to do so would have required having plumbing moved.. like everything else in this house, the landlord went with the cheapest possible thing.. and I can't even tell you how many things are *mickey-moused* put together. As it was, we redid the vanity and replaced the horrid top with a brand new one, bought a new faucet and took down the ugly flat mirror (the kind with clips) and replaced it with a fabulous oval, brushed sliver mirror.. and took out the awful light bar fixture... took down the 5 dollar overhead light fixture, too. Btw, the carpeting and floors were put in in our 2nd year, here. I have beautiful gardens... the neighbors could not understand why we would treat this house like a home, since we didn't own it. I never thought it was crazy to do so. We live here.. I want to be happy in my surroundings. The house may be tiny but it is pretty and it is our home.. we live here. Oh, we also had 2 dogs..sadly, one of the boys died in March..we also had bunnies... house bunnies, free range.. of the house and yard. The house is no worse for wear because of our pets. Why would others assume that we/renters would let our pets turn our home into a shithole. Did we know that when we moved in that we would still be here, all these years later? No. We did it anyway. The rental house before this one? We lived there for 6 years.. we did much the same thing at that house, too. All of this was done on our "dime". I can tell you I was disgusted when going to look at apartments/houses only to have the landlords say that even hanging pictures on the wall was forbidden, never mind, painting the walls. When we, as a couple, first started renting together..we looked at apartment buildings.. and even moved into one... the only time we have ever had a lease. I counted the days to the end of the 1 year lease.. could not wait to get out of there and we knew we would never live in an AC, again...we then rented in law apartments, common in this area.. the landlord lives in the same house.. nope, wouldn't do that either... I can not tell you how nosy, nervy and demanding the landlords were. And we have nothing to hide.. (we did, however, expect some respect for our privacy, after all, we were paying rent)..DH goes to work at 5 am, comes home by 3.. in bed by 8.. right now, I don't work...anyway, am trying to say we are not the party type.. although we do enjoy having our own backyard.. and we do sometimes, entertain small groups (small, don't forget, this house is only 600 sq. feet.. the yard is tiny, very tiny) to BBQ's that start in the afternoon and are over by 7 or 8, usually...on rare occasions...they may last until 10... always on a weekend. I think we are good tenants... I KNOW we've treated this house just as good as an owner would...certainly better than the landlord has. And I'm not suggesting, at all, that our LL is a slumlord, far from it. Silly

i would call the dealer you bought from and ask who they recommend for cleaning. i always have my rugs cleaned by the same person. they never clean it in the home and i would't trust them to any of the "drive by" guys. i think synthetics are fine for that but there are specialists who deal with finer rugs. if another accident should happen, call the recommended rug cleaner asap. good luck, i hope your rug is okay.

Signet, my facebook is Dragonfly Pond Daylilies and Nursery and my lily auction is Dragonsnest at the moment. Dick, thank you, I know when I am looking, I prefer them both together for a quick view on what I might be bidding on. The above cross is one that will be sold/traded since I really don't need 100 of the same cross when I have so many others to plant too.