Steam cleaning to remove urine?

[fiery]

Hey all,
1) No, my cat does not /did not have a UTI, 2) I'm not posting to find out how to stop the behavior, since it's already stopped with Feliway, and 3) I'm posting this here because, well, it's a result of the cat's behavior. So!

So, I moved into a new apartment, and Toby seemed to be doing well. Until we noticed the third bedroom; he'd peed EVERYWHERE for about a month or two. It sucked, and now it smells pretty bad. It didn't matter too much to us, because it was unoccupied and basically a giant storage space for us. Now I have a room mate who wants to move in with us, but the room smells.

I called Stanley Steemer and they're going to come tomorrow to clean the carpet. Has anyone else had any success removing urine odor with a professional steam cleaning company?

Should I soak the carpet in Nature's Miracle first, or just let them handle it?

Thanks. =/ I hope we don't have to move again because of this, ugh.

 

[farleyv]

I would think the steamer co. runs into this from time to time. They may already have an additive in their cleaning solutions to cope with this. If you add something before they get there, it may react badly with what they are using.

Hope all goes well and the smell disappears.

 

[strange_wings]

You may want to pull up the carpet in one of the worst hit corners and check out the padding and flooring under it. Hopefully neither have been damaged. If your subfloor is wood and it's been soaking up urine, you'll have to do more than just wash the carpet that sits on top of it.

 

[fiery]

Well, I just wanted to update for any person who was curious! I had Stanley Steemer come and steam-clean the room for about a hundred dollars. And.. success! Now the room smells like baby powder instead of cat pee. ^-^ Hurray!

Anyway, hopefully this will help someone in the future. My cat had only peed there for a month or two before we caught it, so it wasn't super bad, but it definitely got the smell out, or mostly out! hurray.

 

[addiebee]

Originally Posted by Fiery

Well, I just wanted to update for any person who was curious! I had Stanley Steemer come and steam-clean the room for about a hundred dollars. And.. success! Now the room smells like baby powder instead of cat pee. ^-^ Hurray!

Anyway, hopefully this will help someone in the future. My cat had only peed there for a month or two before we caught it, so it wasn't super bad, but it definitely got the smell out, or mostly out! hurray.

Glad to hear it.. .but give it some time.. if not out of the backing or if it's into the sub floor as SW mentioned... the smell can return.

 

[strange_wings]

I hope it's enough, too.
Depending on how old the carpet and padding is under it you may find some surprises later on. I have some spots in my house where the original carpet still is - from the 1960s! Its in good shape, but the padding isn't and that padding decaying/wearing weirdly left some odd spots in my hallway on the wood floors underneath.

My point: You don't know what you'll find sometimes till you look. Thankfully former owners didn't have house pets.

 

[cronos6939]

Greetings-

I am the owner of two cats. I’ve had Oliver for several years without any problems, and he got along quite well with my previous cat. After my previous cat died, I got a new cat, Jackie, to keep him company. Jackie is a two-year old spayed female. She came from a single-cat, single-person household, but spent time at a shelter between homes. Though it took a little time for her to get used to the two people and one other cat, she now gets along with everyone just fine.



For the first few months, there were no problems—Jackie always used the litterbox. At one point, we purchased a cat tent for both kitties to play in. We only had it for several days before Jackie peed all over it. We then got rid of it. However, she has continued to pee in that same area. I know it is not Oliver, as we never had any such problems in the past, and I have caught Jackie peeing in that spot multiple times. We also had no problems when Jackie was locked up and Oliver was not.



The area she has selected is a stretch of carpeted floor in front of a row of bookcases in the living room, while the litter box has always remained in the back room of the apartment. I’m guessing that she is marking territory. However, I also read that cats who mark stand straight up and do it against a vertical surface. She has not peed on the bookcases (directly) or the books (at all), just on the floor right next to it. She did not formerly claim that area as “her spot” and nothing has changed about the area (or the rest of the apartment), save our brief experiment with the cat tent.





Since we have noticed the problem…

The vet gave Jackie a clean bill of health when I took her for a checkup. No UTI.



I got a new litterbox and a different brand of litter. I sift the box daily and refresh the litter and the plastic-bag-liner completely every 2-3 weeks. I usually scrub the box when I change the litter. I still have the old litterbox, which Oliver has no problems with, for a total of 2, and I don’t think buying a third is the answer.



Whenever I have seen that she has peed, I cleaned the area thoroughly with pet-spray cleaner. I twice had the carpet steam-cleaned, and the throw rug that (used to) sit there has been laundered multiple times. I moved the row of bookcases when I last steam-cleaned the carpet, so that I was sure I got the whole area. I also replaced the

bottom piece of the bookcases, which sadly had absorbed some of her pee from the carpet.



I have locked her away for toilet re-training three times now, both with and without Oliver for company in different instances. When she is locked in the (similarly carpeted) bedroom, there is no problem. She pees only in the litterbox. She was even fine when I was out of town for Thanksgiving weekend and had to leave them locked up for several days. My friends in the area were also traveling, so the cat litter went unchanged for several days, but still, no problem.



However, when her week(s) of lockdown have ended, and she is allowed into the rest of the apartment (under supervision), she keeps reverting to peeing in that area. I have used different sprays in that area in order to make it less a desirable scent. I put down aluminum foil in that spot; she just peed on the foil.





I did read that cats will feel the need to spray if they are outdoor cats. We do let Jackie outside, but only on the porch of our not-ground-level apartment. There is a metal grate that she can look through, but she can’t escape to the wider world. There are no wild cats around who would threaten her territory and cause her to mark that spot. In fact, she can see the same amount of outside from the living room as she can from the bedroom windowsill.

I don’t know what else to try. I’d love to let her out of the bedroom, but that seems to be the only thing keeping her from peeing in the living room. Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated.

-Cronos6939 [@gmail.com]

 

[strange_wings]

Pull the carpet up, replace the padding in that area, and get a good look at the subfloor under it. A paint like kilz can seal stuff like that.


If it's not too far from a corner or a wall you should be able to just roll the carpet up. If you can at all avoid it, don't damage the actual carpet at all (if renting you don't want to make anyone mad).

My guess is that the padding is ruined by now and the wood stinks of urine.