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Cat pee smell - help!

935 views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  Shannie77 
#1 ·
Ack. I'm totally pissed. Pun intended.

We went away for 2 weeks and left my neighbor's 17 yo daughter looking after the animals (and paid her very, very,very well to do so.)

Among other things, she let her younger siblings come in to play (which was totally not part of the agreement). They must have been playing in ds's bedroom, which was shut off, and the cat got shut in there.

My cat has never, ever, ever peed in the house. Poor thing must have been in there for hours.

There has been a vague whiff of cat pee since we got back, driving me nuts. I thought it was from where we had the litter tray, so scrubbed that floor repeatedly. Then I thought it was coming from outside, and moved all the outdoor plant pots, where I could see that cats had been toileting. But the smell wouldn't go.

Then finally yesterday we spent hours sniffing all around the house. Dh dismantled ds's bed, and sure enough, there in the very corner, was the pee. She must have squatted herself down as small as possible to pee, and it's all in the carpet, the wooden leg of the bed, and the baseboard.

I spent hours - yes, hours - yesterday scrubbing it, steam cleaning it, mopping etc. But this morning it stinks even worse. It's overpowering.


Is there anything you can do for cat pee other than cleaning over and over? I think it must have soaked down into the baseboard, but I can't have the carpet and baseboard replaced.....

Agh.

I'm ranting, but honestly. This is only one of many, many things that went wrong while we were away. Sigh.

Ideas? Products? Help!!
 
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#2 ·
You need an enzyme cleaner like Natures Miracle or similar. You can get them at your local pet megamart (Petco/Petsmart ect). Buy the gallon size. Let the area dry from all your cleaning, then pour the bottle on it. The area needs to be totally saturated. I'm not sure about the furniture legs. We've never been able to totally remove the smell but doing that make it so you can only smell it if you get your nose down to the carpet.
 
#3 ·
I second the Nature's Miracle, that stuff works really well. Unfortunately it works best if you haven't used any other cleaner on the spot. Sometimes it reacts with detergents and sort of bonds the smell.

For the bed leg, can you get the bed outside in the sun? That might help too.
 
#4 ·
Dh is going to have to take the bed apart to get it outside into the sun. I think that's the only way. It stinks.

Agh. I wish I'd done more research before cleaning.....

I'll go now to get some Natures Miracle. I'll steam clean again with just water first and dry it, so hopefully it won't react with the carpet cleaner.

Agh. What I hate most is the total waste of my time.... I have soooo much else to do, and my entire weekend is being taken up with cat pee.
:

Thanks for the tip - I appreciate it!
 
#7 ·
Well, I"ve now steam cleaned again with just water, to get all the detergent out. I then dried it out, to just-damp, then used an entire bottle of Natures Miracle. I think I"m going to get a second bottle and do the rest of the carpet. I just can't work out how far it soaked along the carpet. I can't get the carpet up, but apparently it's concrete below, not wood, so that's something.

Now I have a fan blowing air out the window, and it's at least bearable to walk in there. But there's no way we could use that room like this.

It says on the bottle that it can take 2 weeks to work. Is that your experience?

Good tip about using it in the steam cleaner. That may be my next step. It's just so bloody frustrating knowing that this pee was soaking there for weeks, and nobody even told me. If she'd told me when I got home, at least I could have got to it quicker.

Agh. I'm sooooo pissed about this.
: And my poor cat. I have no idea how long she was shut in, and I paid this girl a lot of money to do the job, rather than have the poor cat go to a cattery. My kittie is sooo clean, she'd have been mortified. I can just imagine her running around the room trying to get out.
 
#8 ·
okay i know it's for clothes but i had some blankets that smelt like cat pee. horrible bad and i sprayed oxi-clean 4 in 1 max clean on them and it worked. i haven't tried it on carpet but i don't see how it would hurt. give it a try.
 
#9 ·
I agree that Nature's Miracle works very well but for cat pee I think I like the orange enzyme cleaner that Target sells in their pet dept. I use Nature's Miracle for just about everything but cat pee can really linger if you don't get every little bit. I've had good luck using the orange enzyme cleaner, letting it dry, then using Febreeze. I am very sensitive to cat pee.
 
#10 ·
I've never had it take 2 weeks, but I live in a very hot climate. So it doesn't stay wet very long and IME it takes until it's dry. I used natures miracle once in the back of my truck after dh went fishing and the ice chest leaked UGH! I just poured it all over the wet areas and closed the truck. The smell was totally gone within a day or so but it was summer.

In the case where it's been soaking for that long before you found it I have totally soaked the carpet and pad and left it to dry. It takes a lot longer because you are using a lot and the pad has to dry but IME it's much more effective.
 
#11 ·
We found that the Orange Nature's Miracle was the best. Even still it took over a month for the smell to really fade away. My DH says he can still smell it if he puts his nose really close, but I can't at all.
 
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