Help with cat urine odors in the house (hardwood floors, paint, smell)

[luvmychows]

We just moved into a house and the people before us had a ton of cats, I guess they peed everywhere from the smell of it, we have cleaned the carpets and painted all the walls and sprayed Urine odor removers I am at a loss now as to what to do.. Any Idea's????? we are going to go under the house and spray next but is there anything else we can do. I just can't stand the odor....

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by luvmychows

We just moved into a house and the people before us had a ton of cats, I guess they peed everywhere from the smell of it, we have cleaned the carpets and painted all the walls and sprayed Urine odor removers I am at a loss now as to what to do.. Any Idea's????? we are going to go under the house and spray next but is there anything else we can do. I just can't stand the odor....

Remove the carpets and bleach the subfloor/slab until you are satisfied that the odor is gone before laying new carpet. The carpet underlayment is going to be really nasty more or less regardless of what you do to the exposed carpet.

[NCGT]

Rubbing alcohol works great but you'd have to use a lot (gallons) to clean up carpet and padding.

[cynwldkat]

I knew the bleach works but had no idea about the alcohol. Seems the alcohol would be the safer choice of the two.

[luvmychows]

Thank you all we have used some bleach, we will be putting in hard wood floors but not for a few months.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by cynwldkat

I knew the bleach works but had no idea about the alcohol. Seems the alcohol would be the safer choice of the two.

Either would sublimate completely, but the nice thing about bleach is that it will not burn.

[Snafu]

I had this problem with an older cat, and I could not bear to part with him. I also had decided to take up all the carpet and put down hardwood floors to try and alleviate the problem. The carpet and padding was a total loss, but I soaked the subflooring with something called "Simple Solution", and it took care of about 98% of the smell. I have since installed the hardwood floors, and only occasionally - on a very hot and humid day - there may be a slight whiff, but very little. I think many of the pet stores sell it. Good luck!

[kibblesandbits]

My husband and I have cats, and we have had a problem with one of them urinating outside the litter box, onto the floor, our mattress, etc. We found that a simple mixture of vinegar and water will take away the stains and smell--just mix vinegar and water into a spray bottle, spray on the areas that smell and scrub with paper towels. The area will smell like vinegar for a few days, but after that the smell is gone. We have successfully used this on hardwood floors--never tried it on carpet, though, because the cat has never peed on our carpet. We like this method because it doesn't use any chemicals and works really well. When one of the cats peed on our bed several times I thought we'd have to get rid of the mattress--instead we sprayed the vinegar/water mixture on the stains--got rid of them completely and we kept the mattress.

[Sneezy]

My Father had this problem with my Brothers room because of a cat that peed too high for the sides of the box. He had to take out the carpet and pad, and then sealed the sub flooring with Kilz. Once it was good and dry he had the new carpet installed and has no scent left at all.

[Cosmic]

Once I dealt with the immediate problem, might go back and look at the source of the problem.

Namely the kitty / litterbox interface.

Either the kitty is not wired right or something in the litterbox is not right. Might be too small, might not have the right materials, the kitty ain't liking the peeing grounds, maybe it is not cleaned, changed often enough.

Kitties normally come programmed to do the business in a proper fashion. If it ain't happening correctly something is usually wrong and it might not be with the kitty. Usually that part of the brain comes out perfect in most model year of cats.