The Wall Street Journal had an article on cleaning furniture during hard economic times. It explains why cleaning services are busy while many other industries are slowing down.
Between 2004 and 2008*, the number of inquiries to the Better Business Bureau about carpet and rug cleaners (many of which do upholstery) roughly doubled to 313,039, putting it in the top 1% of industries ranked. Yellow Pages ranks Carpet and Rug Cleaners 22nd out of more than 4,000 headings. That category had more than 88 million references last year.
This is the link to the journal article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123499809059416999.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
* I think the country has been in a period of economic hard times that can be traced back to the 9/11 catastrophe. The '04 to '08 increase in BBB inquiries seems to support that theory. In my opinion the wild growth of the past few years has been artificially induced and was bound to come to a harsh ending.
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