Cat and Dog Pee in your carpet
Cat and Dog urine isn’t pleasant at the best of times. Some people don’t even realise it’s there until they move out. The TV cabinet gets moved, and there it is…
Often, the “stain” associated with the contamination is more colour loss than a real stain. Animal pee tends to release a gas from beneath the carpet, which bleaches out the carpet above over time. Generally, the quicker you can get to the problem, the more chance you have of removing the stain component of the contamination.
As a rule, cat pee tends to have a bit more “zing” than dog pee, and will be easier to trace.
How do we fix dog and cat pee contamination?
Animal urine is a complex issue. Some people prefer to ‘throw a bit of deodoriser at it’ and hope nobody notices it. This may cut it in cases of small contaminations, but to really stop the urine from causing further damage, the area needs to be flooded with a urine neutralising solution, then flushed continuously to remove the odour emitting contaminants using a water claw and our truck mounted extraction machine (see the pics below). This will ensure that the stain or colour loss won’t get any worse, and the smell will be neutralised at the same time. Usually it pays to remove the affected areas of underlay and replace as well.
This is a very labour intensive process, and can get expensive when dealing with large areas of contamination. When it comes to animal urine though, simply deodorising the area to mask the smell can be a waste of time. When dealing with the stain itself, pee stains can be very difficult to remove. If you have an area of carpet (such as a lounge) with multiple deposits spread across the room, it may be unrealistic to expect the stains to all vanish during regular cleaning. One or two small areas of pee may be more able to be treated in a cost effective manner, using stain removal chemicals – as with other stains though, there’s no guarantee that treatment will work 100%.
Ultimately, the best option for any sized contamination could be replacement of the affected area of carpet if donor carpet is available. It may end up being the most cost effective solution in some cases.