Getting rid of pet odors in carpet

[kirbylux77]

Hey Vacuumlanders. I have a problem I need some help with here.

I have an 84 year old elderly lady named Connie, who lives in the same apartment building as I do, who I help with vacuuming & cleaning her apartment twice a week. She is starting to lose her sight & hearing, & just needs some extra help. Now, up until 2 weeks ago, she had a 8 year old male tabby cat named Yakky, that was starting to get nasty with her & she also felt she could no longer properly care for it. In addition, though, the cat was spraying- and possibly peeing also- all over the carpet!

Connie wanted the carpet cleaned to get rid of the smell, so I charged her $20 bucks for the detergent & brought my Hoover Steamvac over to clean the carpets. The Hoover Steamvac did a GREAT job....pulled up tons of muddy, dirty water & also got some stains out. But, unfortunately, the cat odor still remains in the carpet! I had thought of trying putting down lots of pure baking soda, & vacuuming it up with my Bissell Healthy Home, seeing it's a bagless multicyclonic upright, thinking the baking soda should neutralize the smell. But that could just cover it up temporarily, though.

Has anyone here ever dealt with this problem, & if so, what did you do as your solution?

Thanks in advance....Rob

 

[jfalberti]

I had the same problem

several years ago when I got two male kittens.  I had never had cats before, and no one ever told me to get them neutered ASAP, or I'd be sorry.  Well, long story short, I didn't and they started spraying ANYTHING that didn't move.  By that time, it was too late because the vet told me once they start spraying, it is VERY difficult, if not impossible, to make them stop.  The cats went to new homes, and I scrubbed the carpets so many times and the odor wouldn't go away.  I called a professional carpet cleaner, and he told me the only way to get rid of the odor was to use a cleaner that was enzyme based, and it would help, but if the urine had made it's way to the padding, I'd probably be stuck with it until I had the carpet replaced.  Cat urine odor is very hard to get rid of.


 


Joe

 

[suckolux]

Yes, we had that here with one apt, she was missing the box, hitting the wall in the corner and running down to the floor. carpet had to be taken up and the wood moulding and floors bleached? I think and sealed. New carpet. No deposit back there.

 

[kirbysthebest]

First: try to find the main area the spray is concentrated in.
Second: get thy self to PetSmart, or a store that sells pet supplies, I have also seen it at Walmart; and get Extreme Simple Solution.

You will need to saturate the area where the smell is the worst because it has penetrated into the carpet fibers, backing, and possibly the pad below.

For surface, or overspray you can add a 3oz to the solution tank of the Hoover and cover the broad area.

When our dog died two years ago, her last day she had gone behind the couch and lost control of her functions. I was instructed to saturate the carpet and leave it, let it sit for at least five minutes, it has to reach all areas to be effective. I did as instructed, allowed it to sit overnight, blotted at that time and then allowed to air dry. The odor was gone. I then cleaned the entire carpet with a solution in the tank and it caught any areas that there may have been dribbles.

Side bar:
this also works on people urine if you have a family member who is incontinent. My mother had difficulty making it on time and often has accidents. This works wonders.

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3399941

 

[jodan3399]

I had problems with my male doing this, he's fixed, but the neighbors had a couple that weren't and they used to spray my porch, so he started peeing on the rug inside.

Cats can be very territorial fixed or not.

I had good luck with "Anti Icky Poo" although when you treat it, it can smell 10x worse until it works and fully dries (par for course with most enzyme cleaners).

A black light works great for finding those offending spots also.

I hate to say it, but as a one time former owner of a crazy old cat lady fixer-upper...if the cat wasn't fixed and doing this for a long time, nothing short of tearing up the carpeting is going to really work 100%...and you may have to treat the flooring underneath the carpet also.

 

[kirbylux77]

Update

Well, I called a couple of professional carpet cleaners to get some advice. One said to go to a chemical supply warehouse & get a product called "Liquibac"....and the other one said I was right to use baking soda. He said to get a colander & use it to sprinkle the baking soda onto the rug, douse it thoroughly, brush in & let sit for 24 hours, then vacuum. Sure enough, that did the trick & got rid of the odors! Went thru 7 small boxes of baking soda, & used my Bissell Healthy Home 5770 to clean it all up.

Now, you can't even tell there were ever cats in the apartment. Both Connie & I think there must have been some residual moisture in the carpet holding the smell....after all, it was a rainy week when I cleaned the carpet....and the combination of using my Hoover Steamvac with Chemspec Liquid Formula 77 & the baking soda combined did the trick.

Rob

 

[mark40511]

I have two cats

both of which are really good about using the liter boxes. The male cats gets terrified when it rains. Not always, but if he's scared enough he will pee out of fear especially if there's a bad storm. Cat pee is the worst and I have found that my laundry detergent works if it has enzymes (in my case in was Gain HE powder).....

Basically all I did was got quart jar and mixed hot water and laundry detergent and poured it on the area that he peed and got my little green extractor and sucked all of that up, then got a glass of clean water and poured it back on the same area to rinse and the smell was completely gone. I know enzyme's need "time" to work but in this case it seems to work when nothing else would.

Prior to that I scrubbed the area for a day and the smell was still there. I found that enzymes are the only thing that will work and the only thing I could think of that I had in the house that had enzymes was laundry detergent.....that's why I tried.