The husband-and-wife steam cleaners who outlasted the chains in Pembroke Pines
Tony Gomez started Extreme Steam in 2000 with one truck. Twenty-five years later he still runs the wand, his wife Gaby runs the office, and repeat customers still get their free bottle of Spot Out.
In 2000, Tony Gomez bought a truck, mounted a steam cleaning machine in the back of it, and started knocking on doors in Pembroke Pines. The pitch was simple and it has not changed: a hotter, stronger clean than the portable units the big chains send out, done by the person whose name is on the truck.
Twenty-five years later Extreme Steam is still that company, only with more trucks and a few more names. Tony still runs the wand. His wife, Gaby Alvarado, runs operations, which in a family business means she is the one who answers the phone on Monday and has Tony on site by Tuesday. Two owners, one standard, is how they put it.
What the truck is for
Most of the work is deep cleaning: carpet, tile and grout, upholstery, mattresses, area rugs, marble polishing, and the pressure washing that South Florida driveways need twice a year. The equipment matters more than it sounds. A truck-mounted unit heats water and pulls vacuum from the vehicle, which is why customers keep describing 24-year-old floors that “look like day one” and dining chairs that were a week from the curb coming back to life.
The solutions are the eco-friendly kind, a point the company makes because it gets asked about kids and pets more than anything else. The FAQ on their site is a good read for the opposite reason most FAQs are: it answers the questions people actually have, like how long the carpet takes to dry and what happens if nobody is home to pay.
The Spot Out bottle
Ask Tony about the Spot Out bottle. For more than ten years he has handed a bottle of spot cleaner to repeat clients, with a free refill every time the crew comes back. It costs almost nothing and it is the reason a customer who used the company five years ago calls the same number today. Small things like that are how a family shop keeps the same houses for decades while the franchises churn through phone numbers.
Who shows up
Read the reviews and the same names keep appearing: Tony, Eduardo, John, and Gaby. Customers write about the crew tag-teaming a job, cleaning up after themselves, and fitting someone in right away when a floor could not wait. That consistency is the whole product. In a trade where the person who quotes the job is often not the person who does it, Extreme Steam sends the owner.
The company works out of Pembroke Pines and covers Broward, Miami-Dade, and south Palm Beach, in English and Spanish. It has been named among the top three carpet cleaners in Pembroke Pines and in the top one percent for the city in 2023, according to its own listings. Hundreds of homes and businesses across the tri-county area have used them, many more than once.
Why it still works
There is no trick here. A quarter century in, the business runs on the things every service owner knows and few keep doing: the right equipment, a phone that gets answered, a crew that cleans up, and a small habit that makes a customer feel remembered. Extreme Steam is on the Registry because we sat down with Tony, looked at the work, and would send a friend. The profile says the rest.