HUNDREDS of glowing areas on carpet; can Black light detect more than urine?

So I bought a black light tonight, called "Stink-Finder." I nearly had a small coronary after I turned off all the lights in my downstairs and proceed to walk around the living room carpet. Dozens and dozens and dozens of small areas illuminated, hundreds maybe! There is no way in the world that these are cat urine spots because if they were, my house would smell like the Cincinnati zoo and my non-animal loving family would have taken great pleasure in telling me a long time ago that my house stunk; if anything, they've alwasy remarked how nice it smelled (mostly because I smoke but you wouldn't know it).

Is it possible that a black light can pick up OTHER THINGS? Like areas I've previously cleaned up cat throw-up from furballs? (I usually use Spot Shot on these areas).

Funny thing, I "thought" I could smell urine on an expensive non-washable shag rug in my living room, last night. Just a very very small area. When I shone the light over this area - nothing glowed at all.

I faithfully get my carpets steam cleaned every 6-8 months just to keep my very light carpets looking fresh and not worn down in the traffic areas. sometimes the cleaner guy uses a spray stuff on the cat furball/hork areas...maybe this stuff leaves a residue and glows?

I took the light and used it all over and I found glowing areas where no cat could even go.........like on the lid of my washing machine for god's sake (stackable washer/dryer in closet)......even random glowing splashes 5 feet up the wall where no cat could ever reach. Now how the heck can this be?

So basically this light is useless to me because if Bitsy was marking more than the 2 times she did, I'd have no idea which spot.

There's small flecks of glowing way up at the top of door jambs; that's not a place any cat or spray could ever reach (not that any of my cats have ever sprayed). I seemed to notice glowing on surfaces that I've used a cleaner on because you can see the streak marks from the rag, glowing.

HELP!

Thanks

Well they're definitely not my body fluids LOL

So do you think that even though I've previously cleaned many spots on the carpet where the cats horked up a furball and it left a bit of a bile stain that I then cleaned up totally (to the naked eye) with Shot Spot, some kind of hork residue remained (wow, Shot Spot is a powerful solvent) and that's what's glowing?

some of the glowing areas don't even make sense...........a glowing fleck here, a glowing fleck there......very far apart.

God, i don't know what to think. Now I feel like i have no way in the world to figure out if she's still marking. *sigh*

Yeah, I finally figured out that a lot of the tiny flecks ARE just lint LOL

Well I can't even begin to explain why I have so many spots all over the carpets of my home. The only room that has pretty much none is my bedroom which is funny because that's a room upstairs that all 5 of my cats have always spent a LOT of time in.

There's even some on the carpet in my spare bedroom, a couple of the areas really glow majorly, with really distinct edges. This isn't a room that's ever been steamcleaned because nobody uses it, it's just for the odd guest. I've never even cleaned up a horked-up furball in there because the cats don't spend any time in there.

My house was new when I bought it so it's not like it's fluids from the previous owners.

I'm really at a loss.

If this really was cat urine, my house would stink to high heaven and I'd constantly see cats peeing in these areas.

Interestingly enough, the original mat that Bitsy peed on (a long shag-type washable rubber backed bath mat); I washed that within seconds of her peeing on it.......I let it soak in the washer for a good hour..........when I waved the light over it, nothing glowed except the entire mat because it's white LOL. I washed it only in hot water, soap, oxyclean.

I did see some very mild glowing spots on the round shag rug in my kitchen nook but I know those spots were places the cats previously horked up furballs on (I remember vividly because I can remember trying to figure out how the heck to clean furball - puke out of long shag LOL).

I guess I am just going to not worry about this anymore because I'll drive myself batty (battier?)

Thanks everyone for your responses.

I remembered something.

My poor dear Angel kitty Taco was a manx............he had a 3 inch stub tail......only it was a tail that hung DOWN .......and was notorious for getting in the way when he'd use the litterbox (pee and poop). This is something we dealt with for all of his 16 yrs. If he was down in his litterbox and I was around, I could easily just lift up his tail while he'd pee and he didn't mind......this would keep it from getting wet. But most of time I wasn't there when he peed, of course........so often his tail was wet with pee on the end. When I'd notice this, of course I'd wash his tail...........but I suspect, unfortunately, that the pee from his tail would obviously make contact with the carpet many, many times over the past 8 years I've owned this house. I suspect that all of the glowing I see is from that? ...........even though the carpets have regularly been steam cleaned twice a year over these past 8 yrs? (they even use some kind of product on the carpets regularly, to 'sanitize' them -- thing it's something with peroxide in it but I could be wrong).

I'm lucky my house has never smelled like cat pee and I say this with all honesty because my family (parents) are not animal lovers, my Mother is a clean freak and she would be the first one, when coming to visit, to advise me if my house didn't smell right.........and she's always commented on how my house smells nice.......particularly because I'm a (dirty, rotten, filthy LOL) smoker, too. I've always been sort of self-conscious in this regard, have always kept my house clean and having 5 cats and being a smoker, I've always worked hard so that people coming into my home would be surprised..........you know, like "wow, you have 5 cats and you smoke? I would never know it, your house smells good!"....that kind of thing.

I'm just not sure how to go about tackling the hundreds of spots. They're very small so it does jive with them being from Taco's wet tail (from him sitting). I just don't know how on earth I'd be able to get them all with peroxide. It feels like it would take weeks! and I'd have to keep my cats locked up during the process (until the washed areas had dried).

My parents were over today, they met Bitsy for the first time. Being that they're not animal people or cat-lovers, I surely didn't tell them that she's peed inappropriately 3x now, they'd have gone on about how I should take her back to the HS, bla bla bla. I did ask them if they smell cat pee in the house and they both told me they didn't, they assured me they didn't. Of course they wanted to know WHY I asked them (LOL)...I just said "well you know, with a new cat in the house whose history you don't know, you never know."

But that's the thing; for the 8 years I've owned this house, I've faithfully had my carpets steam-cleaned twice a year. The last time was in August. So getting carpets cleaned, unless they're actually professionally cleaned with some kind of special enzymatic cleaner, won't do anything. Obviously all of the cleaning I've done to date hasn't helped, at least from the "glowing spot" perspective.