Disinfecting Used Carrier?

As with many apartment buildings, people leave good but used stuff out by the dumpster for anyone else who wants it before the trash men pick it up. Well, as we were moving out this weekend we saw that someone had put out a really nice, small dog/large cat sized carrier. Since we're considering another addition, we grabbed it.

Since I don't know who left it or why, I need to disinfect it so that any lingering nasties are disposed of. We have not brought it into the house yet (it's in outside attached storage). Besides bleach, is there anything else I need to do to it to disinfect it and get any lingering smells out?

I'd personally use bleach, just rinse it with lots of water. Then rinse it some more.

I used to work in a lab at a blood donation center and we used to use bleach to disinfect the counters. We switched when someone decided it was worth the money to get an expensive enzymatic cleaner that was designed to destroy viruses like AIDS and Hep C (because that's a major danger with blood), but bleach was better for bacterial/fungal stuff and stains of all sorts. We still used bleach for the once-a-month total lab cleaning.

I agree that bleach is probably the best bet. I work with a girl that used to work in the hospital and she said all they used to clean was a bleach solution and lysol.

I'd bleach it a 2nd time and let it sit in the sun on your porch. Also you could put some of the Natures Miracle cleaner after its dried and that will take out any further odors and also disenfect it.

NEVER use Lysol for cleaning around cats!

I picked a carrier up through freecycle and I washed itwell with bleachy water.