10 Things Your Dry Cleaner Won't Tell You

Lenore McIntyre knows. Last July she was hung out to dry after Ireland Cleaners, in Richmond, Va., lost three of her tablecloths, valued at $800. For more than two weeks she called the cleaner looking to get reimbursed. When the store manager finally offered her $100, McIntyre told her, "That won't pay for it." According to McIntyre, the manager then replied, "Well, this is all I can do," and hung up. McIntyre later sued Ireland Cleaners in Chesterfield County Civil Court and won a judgment for $820 plus legal fees. Ireland Cleaners has yet to pay. (The cleaner also did not return our calls for comment.)

Ron Berry, senior vice president at the Council of Better Business Bureaus, says disputes over lost items "are where we have the swearing matches. If a dry cleaner acknowledges he lost it, he has to pay for its replacement." He suggests that when you drop off a garment at a cleaner, be sure to ask for a receipt indicating what you had cleaned. It will help your case against a dry cleaner.

2. "You won't get much from us if we ruin your sweater."
At least if a cleaner loses your item, he's supposed to pay the full amount so you can get a new one. But say your blazer comes back with a slash in one arm. You'd want it replaced, right? Well, that doesn't wash with dry cleaners. For damaged goods, the industry standard is to offer the item's depreciated value as listed in the Fair Claims Guide, published by the International Fabricare Institute (IFI), the Silver Spring, Md., association representing 6,000 owners of dry cleaning businesses. Problem is, you won't get much.

Skirts, shirts, cotton suits and silk dresses that are just over a year old and in average condition before the damage are valued at just 40% of the replacement cost. A five-year-old wool blazer in average condition gets you just 15% of what it actually costs. If an item is deemed an heirloom — say, a couture Chanel suit or an antique Persian rug — you can get back its market value. But in the eyes of the IFI, that sweater Grandma knit for you is worth the same amount as one from the Gap. As the guide says, "'Sentimental value'...is subjective and is ruled out as a valid consideration."

3. "Good luck proving the damage was our fault."
In cases where you and your cleaner can't agree on who's at fault for damaging an item, the cleaner will probably suggest this solution: send the item to the IFI, which will analyze it and then determine who's to blame for the damages. Trouble is, it's unlikely your cleaner will be found at fault.

Of the 13,000 items that the IFI tested in 2001, cleaners were held responsible just 11% of the time, while the manufacturer was at fault 45% of the time and the consumer 35%. Why the lopsided score? "If a dry cleaner knows he messed up, he's not going to send it in," says Lorraine Muir, manager at the IFI's garment analysis lab. But Ralph Warner, an attorney and executive publisher of legal-advice Web site Nolo.com, questions the impartiality of the IFI, whose funding comes from dry cleaners. Warner has seen cleaners use the IFI reports as supportive evidence in court cases. "It's a trade association,"he says. "They want to sell it as expert opinion, but it's not unbiased opinion."

4. "We clean your clothes with killer chemicals."
In the past 10 years, the number of dry cleaning operations in the U.S. has grown by nearly 50%, to more than 30,000 businesses. That's great news if you like convenience, but not if you worry about the environment. PERC (short for perchloroethylene) is the chemical used to dry-clean your clothes, and this toxic substance is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a probable human carcinogen. In fact, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found that dry cleaning workers they studied over a 36-year period were 25% more likely to die from cancer than the general population.

But you don't have to work at a dry cleaner to be exposed to PERC. Cindy Stroup of the Environmental Protection Agency says that at least half of the national priority sites for toxic waste cleanup are partially contaminated with PERC. And even though the EPA has increased rules in recent years to prevent PERC dumping, violators still percolate. Last May, Michael Rosenberg, owner of Avenue Cleaners in Naugatuck, Conn., pleaded guilty to illegally disposing of PERC in a wooded area, thereby polluting water wells. He's serving 18 months in jail. "There is no doubt that there is significant health and environmental risk with PERC," says Stroup. But Jon Meijer, a vice president at the IFI, stands behind PERC. "It's been used safely and continues to be used safely," he contends.

5. "We could help the environment — but why bother?"
It may defy logic, but water can be used to clean dry-clean-only clothing. The process, though, is hardly catching on — there are only about 10 wet cleaning facilities in the country. "Cost is an issue," says the IFI's Meijer. "Wet cleaning requires far more labor, and you tend to need a lot more space." Meijer adds that wet cleaning is effective on only 40% of clothing. But the EPA's Stroup classifies such claims as "baloney." She contends that "virtually everything that can be dry-cleaned can be wet-cleaned."

Peter Sinsheimer, director of Occidental College's Pollution Prevention Education and Research Center, would certainly agree. A recent test he conducted with several dry cleaners in Southern California showed that wet cleaning lowered an operator's costs by between 17 and 51%, and garments and other items came out as clean as when dry-cleaned. (Plus, costs to the consumer stayed the same.) "We've shown you can do this," says Sinsheimer. Meijer doesn't buy the results, though. "You can't wet-clean garments 100%," he contends.