Just moved into our new home. The house was built in 1989 and the sellers were the original owners. Seems they had cats that liked to pee in (many) certain spots. We had a few days in which to pull up the carpets and try treating them before the new carpet and pad were laid. When the old carpet and pad was up we found the subflooring stained because the urine was so bad. We sprayed bleach on the stains (it foamed up) multiple times, and once it smelled of just bleach we sprayed polyurethane on the stained areas. Then just before the carpet and pad were laid we dumped a lot of baking soda over these areas.

The carpet and pad were laid a week ago and now the cat urine smell is coming back through these areas of new carpet.

What can we do?

Thanks -- Dana

 

Cat piss will be there for a long time. You can cover it and cover it, but it will still come back. It could also be soaked up into the sheet rock/walls and baseboards. You can try to encapsulate it, which means cover all sides of the damaged material(top, under, and sides) But the only way to eliminate it is, to tear it out and replace.

I went and bid on a floorcovering job, where they had cut all the sheetrock up 3 ft, cut the wall studs, and were replacing the whole wood subfloor, because of cat damage.

 

The urine has probably run down through the floor boards to the subfloor. Cleaning and sealing the hardwood beneath will not eliminate the problems below.

 

Well, we have been pulling back the new carpet and pad, to find the smell still very strong in places (and it has "infused" the new carpet and pad too!). We have bought *7* gallons of Nature's Miracle for cat urine ($20/gallon) and started treating the flooring (concrete in the basement, plywood subfloor elsewhere) as well as the carpet, pad, tackstrips, baseboard and lower part of the wall.

Nature's Miracle has its own unique smell, which is enough to drive me out of the house, but it also seems to "stir up" the original urine smell and make it stronger. We have only been doing this a few days and the stuff says it does not really cure the smell until it dries, and that can take *weeks*!!! Needless to say it is hard to live in our new home with the new carpeting pulled back over many areas of the house!

Is there any real hope? After Nature's Miracle does its stuff (and I hope that means the urine smell is gone) should we coat the flooring with a good thick layer of polyurethane to seal it before putting back down the pad and carpet?

Thanks for all the replies!

Dana

 

You might want to run a dehumidifier and set some fans about to expedite the drying process. I recently read a forum post where someone was successful sealing a subfloor after treating for urine. They applied two coats of polyurethane to seal and reported no further problems. Before applying the poly, make sure that the floor has throughly dried. You don't want to seal in any moisture. Please keep us posted.

 

Well, the Nature's Miracle stuff seems to have worked some. In the basement it does seem to have worked on the concrete slab and the tack strip, as well as the carpet and pad. Our kittens have not peed/marked where the old stains had been. The carpet smells funky -- not like the smell of Nature's Miracle right out of the bottle, but not like cat urine either! We plan on shampooing the rug to get rid of that smell.

Now in the living room and master bedroom closets it is a different story. I can tell where Nature's Miracle *has* removed the odor -- there are areas of the subfloor where I can stick my nose right down and all I smell is damp plywood -- *nothing* else. But I have found that the stained tack strips still stunk, as did the subflooring that was stained the worst. I have pulled up the tack strips to throw it away (when I cut up the 3' sections into 1' strips with a hand saw it *released* the cat urine smell one thousandfold!). I then treated the worst areas again with the little remaining Nature's Miracle we had. We are reluctant to buy more expensive treatments when this is supposed to work. I'm already trying to see if I could successfully pull up the affected subflooring and replace it -- but it is up against the walls and I do not want to rip out the baseboard and the bottom of the walls to get all the way to the joists at the edge of it. Arghhhhh.

I think I will take one specific spot and, when it is dry, try the multiple coats of polyurethane. Of course that will seal *out* any more treatments I could use also, but at that point if the smell still remains I imagine I will be pulling up the subflooring.

Thanks for all the advice!!!!

Dana

 

OK -- it seems that a *minimum* of *6* coats of Kilz stain sealer/primer is containing the smell. I also removed the old tack strips.

The Nature's Miracle/urine smell was in the pad so we cut the bad parts out (our carpet installer has promised us free replacement pad) and I borrowed a Hoover steamvac to shampoo it out of the carpet.

I have found that along the edges of the carpet, and especially in the corners, the carpeting is separating from the backing. The backing being a grid of nylon strands glued to the carpeting with some glue that seems to have *sand* in it. Before I install new tack strips and have the carpet kicked back onto them, I assume it needs to be reglued to the backing. Can I do this? What glue would I use?

Thanks!

Dana

 

Talk with your installer about the carpet delamination. Perhaps excess moisture caused this problem or perhaps it could be defective carpet.

 

Delamination is usually caused from moisture. Be it from previous "Steam cleaning", the pet urine, the Natures Miricle, or your use of the Hoover shampooer. Water and action bac don't do too well together.

Yes, it is actual sand in the backing! Actually they call it "Marble Dust". It's called fillers, to make the latex go farther. Sand is not the only filler either. Soap is also part of the formula. That's right, SOAP! When the secondary backing gets wet, it releases from the primary backing on the carpet(Delamination). Never seen an action bac not delaminate after getting the slightest bit of moisture.

The tighter the "pick" of the backing (the nylon grid) the better the backing. Less filler fall out. A 12 pick backing will hold the latex and fillers in better then a 5 pick backing. Pick is measured by the amount of squares in the grid, there are in an inch, measuring the length of the carpet.

 

Well, there's no doubt the carpet has delaminated -- but what can be done about it?

Thanks -- Dana

 

Relatex it. Buy a bottle at a wholesale carpet supply & distributors. Just becareful with it.