I recently purchased a house as rental property. It has hardwood flooring and tile thoughout. The whole house reeks of urine. I have not tried anything yet but would like to know if anyone might have a solution.

 

I would air it out first and try to locate the source, if there is a single source. work from there.

Cat urine's odor is almost impossible to remove. If the contamination is throughout, you will have to refinish the wood floors. Possibly regrout the tile. If it is vinyl tile, it may have to be replaced.

Hope this helps.

 

Ive found that white vinegar works well I done it plenty recently. Let me know what u think

 

About 4 years ago I received some wonderful advice from the folks here. There was a thread about this. If the urine is in the wood subfloor, the only way to get rid of the smell is to apply 6 coats of urethane to the subfloor. Not 5 coats, but 6. That's what I did and it worked. Others wrote in that they only did 3 or 5 and still had the smell. Seems like 6 coats is the magic number.

If the urine is in the hardwood, you need to be concerned that it leaked down between the strips and possibly onto the subfloor. If you can sand the floors and then pin point exactly where the smell is, you may be able to remove those particular strips and replace with ones from a closet. Be sure to do the 6 coats of urethane on whatever subfloor gets exposed.

There are steam machines you can rent that clean grout, but I'm not sure if it will remove the urine smell. Might be worth a try, especially if you can add an enzyme cleaner to the water.

Newt

 

A friend of mine had the same problem, he did have to tear up sections of the hardwood floor and attack the problem from underneath.
Urine left for a long time can have a very very acidid effect, eathing through things you wouldn't think it could.

As someone already said, try your hardest to pinpoint the area on the floor. You should be able to spot it on the hardwood floor as their would be a patch of discoloration.

as for the tile, if it wasn't properly grouted the urine would for sure have sunk through to the underside and you would need to tear up the tile and re do it. Also I have heard that urine will eat through the glue thats used undercarpeting, so I am sure if you look close enough, you should be able to find the area that is causing the problem, look for looser tiles.

There's a great product that I used when housebreaking dog.
Its called Nature's Miracle. I am sure its sold in the States too.
It uses enzymes to trsnform organic stains & odour causing materials into liquid, then you just soak the stain and odors up with a cloth.

If you locate the spot, maybe try some of that and see if it works.

Wendy

 

Tainted flooring is difficult because the urine penetrates into the subfloor, so sealing the flooring might only address the issue from the top, not the bottom. The ultimate answer is to replace the flooring. Try the other methods first, if you like, as they are definitely easier than replacing the floor.

 

I need to also remove dog urine from the conrete basement of a rental house. I was interested in the white vinegar recipe, but knowing how potent vinegar smells. So, can someone confirm that this does work, do I need to scrub it into the floor or can I use a sprayer, etc.

Thanks,
Chris

 

I just got a small puppy and was visiting with my neighbor. They turned my on to an inexpensive but very awesome way of eliminating urine and fecal stains from pets and it works effectively. Rubbing Alcohol works wonders....it kills the enzymes that cause the odor and it also lifts stains out without causing any damage. I tried the white vinegar thing and that didnt seem to help not to mention it also kill all the bacteria and germs from the bodily secretions. As a nurses assistant I should have figured that one out. Heck most places rubbing alcohol is only 98 cents maybe. I dont dilute it just buy a couple bottle of it and pour into a spray bottle and spray it directly on. It works great for killing flies too. You can use the rubbing alcohol on everything. Just leave it to soak in dont have to scrub it or anything just let it soak through the wood, carpet or whatever it is on.

 

Chris, do be sure to apply those 6 coats of urethane when you're done.

Newt

 

My problem is with a concrete basement floor. Would I urithane my concrete floor?

 

You can use urethane or Kilz. I looked for the post where I found the info and couldn't find it. It was in either 2001 or 2002. Here's some searches I did using 'Advanced Search' and the words: urine + concrete.
http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=166087&highlight=urine+carpet
http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=205730&highlight=concrete+urine
http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=8306&highlight=concrete+urine
http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=40688&highlight=concrete+urine
http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=166087&highlight=concrete+urine

Newt

 

Vinegar only smells while you are using it...and maybe your hands afterward for a bit. We use vinegar/water spray bottle for floors and counters when the ants invade, no sweat.
And Nature's Miracle is at pet stores in the states...and does work wonders on carpet I know. What's better, it keeps the animals from going back to the same place over and over again as the tend to do. If they can't smell it, it must be good!

 

Best to try cleaning it first..the above mentioned products are right on.

But most of the time..pulling back carpet, upping hardwood floors and replacing sheet vinyl is about the only way to get rid of it.

I recently started some cat urine decontamination work in a home.

First thing i asked.....are you planning on replacing the carpet?

"yes" Ok best thing to do rip it out and clean and seal subfloors and lower part of walls.

I ripped it out..cleaned the subfloors...dehumidifer is on it now. Will seal here in a few days. Odor is gone.

 

How do I get rid of the cat smell that comes throughout house when the heat or air conditioner turns on???

 

I dont have any carpet in my house. All hardwood floors but I smell them and do not smell it unless vent system is working. my cat has never been upstairs she lives downstairs in her own area of basement .

 

Tronna: If you have a forced air system, make sure that you clean out the ducts, especially near the floor/low wall vents. In my work I see matted pet hair, dander, etc inside floor ducts, especially houses used as rentals.

Urine odors: I believe that you should neutralize the odors before anything else. Enzymes and bacterias are oftentimes effective, maybe w/multiple treatments. I suspect that urine is on the high side of ph, so an acid such as vinegar could help, not sure though. Hopefully Nestor will contribute-he has a feel for chemical solutions to problems, and will teach us theory in the process.

At this point, do not urethane anything until you know that you have done everything else. Urethane should be the final step as it is pretty much irreversible.

 

I'm surprised that no one mentioned black light.

People should be aware that the dried urine of all mammals fluoresces under ultra violet light. The way I understand it, there are bacteria that feed on urine, and that the "poop" of these bacteria fluoresces under ultraviolet light. Janitorial firms use commercial style black lights made specifically for locating dried up pet urine so they know exactly where to apply treatment chemicals.

Bane-Clene® Ultra-Violet Black Light Pet Urine Detector

One of the web sites on the internet that caters to the janitorial service sector of the economy is Cleanfax Online :: Brought to you by Grand View Media

If you go to that web site and type "black light" into the search engine on that page (top right corner), you'll find several articles on how to use black lights to locate dried up pet accidents and identifying the kind of pet that made the stain by it's colour.

I would buy or rent a commercial black light and search your basement for fluorescent stains on the floor down there. It's possible that someone didn't clean the litter box often enough and there's a urine stain on the floor under it.

 

I knew that blacklights are used in the pest control industry to locate rodent urine, and hopefully their harborages. I didn't take it a step further and realize that locating the urine could then facilitate treatment in a more directed and efficient way. Will store that one away in the memory banks.

 

Yeah, not only will the black light tell you where the urine is, but it'll tell you how effective the cleaner you're using to remove it is. That is, if the cleaner is working, then the fluorescence in the area you're cleaning will diminish and disappear. If the cleaner you're using isn't effective at removing the urine stain, it'll tell you that, too.

 

Is it possible to clean up the subfloor as needed (found lots of tips on cleaning and neutralizing and then sealing instructions), replace the carpet pad, then relay the carpet (and clean the carpet again if needed)? It seems like we're getting the smell up from the carpet with the different cleaner that we've used and the carpet cleaner machine we have, but then the smell from the pad and the subfloor comes back so I have a hope the carpet can be salvaged. There is no visible stain or damage to the carpet at all.

I realize it might be an unrealistic wish to not have to replace the carpet, but if the remaining smell problem is from the subfloor and pad, can the carpet be re-used?

 

Had this problem with a house, both in the basement concrete floor and the hardwood floor throughout. I removed all the hardwood and sprayed the subfloor with BIN Z Shellac based.
For the concrete floor I mixed hydrated lime in a mop bucket wet mopped the floor several times, rinsed it really good with hot water and ran a industrial dehumidifier for three days, then painted the floor with a oil based paint. The smell was extremely bad and this took care of it 100%

 

We've never had to replace carpet for urine (the carpet itself has always been salvaged by cleaning) but the pad often has to go and the floor beneath sealed as well.

 

"For the concrete floor I mixed hydrated lime in a mop bucket wet mopped the floor several times, rinsed it really good with hot water and ran a industrial dehumidifier for three days, then painted the floor with a oil based paint."

 

We paint concrete floors with sealing primer when this is an issue. That said, any moisture coming through the slab can negate that effect, so it helps to know whether you have moisture coming through first.

 

I've just skimmed thru the posts but I didn't see this mentioned.

I've been using something called "Anti-Icky-Poo". Yeah, I know the name is funny but it works. It's one of the enzyme sprays. Been using it for cat pee. They have a carpet injector so you can put in down in to the pad under the carpet and I saw directions on how to use it on concrete on it's website too.