At least 25% of American households have a cat as a pet. Carpets make up 48% of the total flooring market.
These statistics can lead to a dangerous combination; a home with floors covered in that distinctly horrible cat pee smell.
Cat urine contains protein and high levels of uric acid that break down into foul-smelling ammonia. It’s also more highly concentrated than dog urine and can stay in carpets for years.
Read on to learn how to prevent, identify, and clean out the cat pee smell from your home.
Prevention
Always keep the litterbox clean and inviting. If your cat keeps avoiding it anyway, he or she may have a medical issue. See if they’re suffering from:
- Stress
- Urinary tract infections
- Kidney disease
- Arthritis
Help from your vet won’t help you remove the cat pee smell from your home, but it could keep it from getting worse.
Identification
Removing the cat pee smell from your home is difficult if you don’t know where it’s coming from. Try to catch your pet in the act of peeing outside the litterbox.
If you can’t catch them, look for a cat pee stain in hidden areas or around borders. Blacklights make them stand out in the dark.
Cleaning Away the Cat Pee Smell
Cat pee is dangerous because of how deep it can go. It moves through the carpet into the backing, through the carpet pad, and down to the subfloor.
Clean every cat urine stain as soon as you see it. The quicker you act, the less likely it is to soak in and be almost impossible to remove later.
Always blot with paper towels or old rags. Scrubbing spreads the smell and can make it stay even longer.
You can use a specialized cleaner to get rid of it. You can also try natural methods such as vinegar and water, hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, or club soda.
Whatever solution you use, make sure it’s an enzymic cleaner. These are the most effective at breaking down the enzymes in cat pee.
Don’t use a steam cleaner on pet stains. The heat could cause the cat urine smell to set into your carpet.
Even your best efforts to remove cat pee won’t always work, especially in severe cases. Hire carpet cleaners to get a thorough treatment.
They’ll be able to treat an entire room or several rooms where your cat’s been peeing. Identifying the right spots to treat first makes their job easier.
Where to Find Carpet Cleaners
The distinctively awful cat pee smell is one of the few negatives of having these wonderful animals in your home.
Medical issues may cause them to pee outside of the litterbox. Find out where they’ve peed using backlights before it soaks through your carpet.
When you clean the pee away, remember to blot it with a rag and not rub it. Use an enzymic cleaner that breaks it down, and call a professional for thorough treatment.
Sunlight Carpet Care has over 20 years of experience keeping homes clean. Schedule carpet cleaning to remove pet stains today.
