Last week I tried to reach Jennifer Carr, owner of Distinctive Cleaning, after Zerorez filed a lawsuit against her company. I didn't hear back from Carr in time for Sunday's column.

On Tuesday Carr said the Zerorez lawsuit against her company is simply an attempt to knock out the competition. Carr said Zerorez is going after a local family-owned company because "we can do a very similar job and it's a threat to them."

The lawsuit claims Distinctive Cleaning bought up Google search terms to trick customers looking for Zerorez and told customers that they used "exactly the same" cleaning process as Zerorez.

Carr said they use a "very similar" process as Zerorez and have a right to advertise that their business leaves no residue on customers' carpets. She said company representatives always tell customers they are from Distinctive Cleaning.

Carr would not say that the company bought a "zerorez" Google AdWord, but said "if in the past we did use the trademark term 'zerorez,' it is not a search term that we currently put in there."

"When we received the first cease-and-desist letter, I contact our Google AdWords manager, and she made sure that those words were out," Carr said. Carr said the battle over the AdWords has already cost her company $20,000 in legal fees.

Zerorez owner Michael Kaplan responded to Carr's statements saying: "There is a great deal of trust involved in the relationships we foster everyday. To respect and protect this trust we found it necessary to pursue legal action only after multiple requests for Distinctive Cleaning to stop their deceptive practices were ignored."