Removing nasty pee smells is essential to keeping a tidy home. However, the odor can be tough to remove and virtually impossible to mask, especially when your cat urinates outside the litter box.
Whether your cat pees on the rug, furniture, sheets, or clothing, it is imperative to neutralize the odor to stop your cat from peeing on the area repeatedly. Cats typically go back to a spot where they have peed before if the smell is not removed.
Beyond eliminating smells, it is also imperative to get into the root cause of these unwanted behaviors, which can be a health issue.
Read on for you to learn some tips on how to remove stubborn pee smells and know the possible reasons why your cat is doing its business outside the litter box.
Cat Urine Is Potent
Cat pee includes uric acid, which can stay in different materials for years! Although many cleaning stuff such as baking soda, vinegar, soap, and hydrogen peroxide may momentarily remove the odor, a humid day can cause the uric acid to recrystallize, along with the notorious smell. The only way to destroy uric acid is to use an enzyme cleaner. These types of cleaners break the uric acid into gases, and the gases vaporize as it dries. The process leaves your rug and furniture smelling fresh once again. You can find enzyme cleaners online as well as at the majority of the supermarket.
Cat Urine Becomes Worse Over Time
Feline pee outside the litter box is unnoticed until the smell hits your nose.
After a while, the bacteria in the pee decays and releases an ammonia-like smell that's particular of stale, old urine. In the second stage of the decay process, the pee produces mercaptans, the same substance that gives skunk spray its infamous odor.
Older Cats Have Smellier Pee
Older cats have kidneys that are not as pristine as when they were younger and tend to have worse-smelling urine.
Unneutered Males Have Hormones in Their Urine
The sexual hormones that cats sprat when they pee add to the smell. Unless male cats are neutered, their testosterone-spiked pee signals other males to steer clear of and lets females know they're about.
How to Clean Up Cat Urine Before They Smell Worse
As awful as cat pee smells, it still gets worse over time. The odor becomes more concentrated over time. Furthermore, as soon as a pee dries, you may no longer see it, but you will smell it. So does your cat, leading them to mark the same area once more.
Products to Use
Many products can help eliminate cat pee odor, like vinegar, baking soda, and chemical cleaners. Here are some alternatives to help you eliminate the pet cat pee odor.
Baking Soda and Vinegar
While a bit stinky, vinegar works to eliminate the long-term odor of cat pee because vinegar is an acid that reduces the effects of the alkaline that are the cause of dried pee marks.
You can use a solution of water and one part of vinegar to clean wall surfaces and floors. Believers in this mixture say the vinegar smell subsides after a couple of days, taking the urine odor.
Enzyme-Based Cleaners
Natural enzymes and handy microorganisms remove the harmful bacteria that cause unpleasant smells. You can try to use an enzyme-based cleanser for odor removal in carpets, couch pillows, mattresses, and bed linens. The enzymes break down the acid in cat pee, helping to get rid of the odor instantly.
When cleaning any area, you must target places where you cannot smell pee but that you notice your feline go to again and again. When a cat can smell a previous pee area from themselves or another cat, that area is likely to be used again.
Stay Away from Products that Contain Ammonia
Most importantly, avoid any cleansing items that contain ammonia. Ammonia is one part of cat urine; if cats smell that, they're likely to pee in that area.
Getting Urine Off the Carpet
Remove cat pee from carpets with these steps:
- Blot off as much urine as you can with a clean towel.
- Next, wash the area with water and dry it with a wet/dry vacuum cleaner. Do not use a steam cleaner, as heat can activate stains.
- While enzyme cleaners are available in a spray container, spraying a light coat over the stain will not do much. Instead, put a liberal amount of enzyme cleaner on the stained area.
- Allow the cleaner to rest for 10-15 mins, and blot off as much of it as possible with a clean towel.
- For older stains that are smelly, you might need to reapply the enzyme cleaner and allow it to dry once again.
Keeping Your Cat Off the Spot
Place an aluminum foil over the area to keep your feline from returning to the spot while cleaning. You can also cover it with a clothes hamper turned upside-down.
Getting Pee Smell Off the Subflooring
Pee can usually saturate through the carpeting and into the subflooring, leaving a stain and a stink that you can't remove with regular rug cleaner and elbow grease.
If you have a pet smell that refuses to go away despite your best carpet-cleaning efforts, counteract the smell by using an oil-based, stain-blocking primer on the subfloor under the carpeting. Replace the padding and the carpet in the said area.
Getting Pee Smell Off Cushions
Here are simple ways to remove the cat pee smell from a cushion.
- Saturate the affected area of the cushion with water. Blot off as much as you can with a clean towel.
- Soak the cushion very slowly, putting the enzyme cleaner on and around the afflicted area.
- Allow the enzyme cleaner to sit and penetrate for 10-15 minutes, then squeeze out as much product as possible before blotting it dry with towels.
- Leave the cushion out since it may take up to a couple of days to dry. Put an aluminum foil under before placing the pillow back. Put another aluminum foil over the top to inhibit your cat from peeing again.
Removing Pee Smell in Mattresses
- Saturate the affected area with water. Blot off as much feline pee as possible with a towel.
- Then soak the mattress by slowly putting the enzyme cleaner on and around the peed area.
- Allow the chemical cleaner to rest for 15 minutes, then blot it up. Put several layers of clean towels over the mattress, then make the bed.
- Swap out the towels daily until the mattress completely dries out.
- Cover the bed with a big plastic sheet when you're not using it to inhibit your cat from peeing again while the bed mattress dries. Waterproof mattress covers also help to protect your mattress from future pee accidents.
- Cushions may require several applications to eliminate the feline urine.
Removing Pee on Clothes
- One crucial thing with linens and clothes is: NEVER use bleach. Ammonia and cat urine can create nasty fumes when mixed.
- If your bed linens and clothing are washable, rinse the spot in the sink with water.
- Put the items in the washing machine with your usual detergent, a quarter cup of cider vinegar, or a cup of baking soda.
- If you are still able to smell the urine after a cycle, add enzyme cleaner to the area (following instructions on the packaging) and rerun the process.
- Always air-dry linens, as the dryer's heat may lock in the scent before it's completely gone.
- You might need to rewash one or more times till the smell is completely gone.
