If you have a problem with urinating a cat outside the litter box, you may have finally understood why you came up with an acceptable solution. For your sake, I hope you have it!
However, even after you have solved the problem with the drawer, another problem that remains to be solved is the problem of removing the smell of cat urine from your home. I know all about it. Within a few months, my two cats, Eric and Felix, were caught in a territorial battle for the property of our house. The house was a battlefield, and we humans were prisoners!
As soon as we finally understood, to return them to using the litter box like good kittens, it was a great relief. Unfortunately the house still smelled awful! We regularly received clean furniture and carpets, but it still did not affect the smell. Chemicals used by cleaning agents, if at all, add to the problem, rather than fix it. If you are dealing with a cat urine problem, I suggest that you do not do professional cleaning until you learn a few of the ideas in this article.
First, let's better understand what we are up against here, and why cat urine is so difficult to handle.
Cat urine contains three main elements. They are:
- Urea
- Urochrome
- Uric acid
Urea is the harder, tackier component of urine. It is easiest to clean with a sponge or towel and any number of different cleaning products.
Urochrome is what creates the yellow color of urine. Depending on the surface on which you wet the cat, it may be more difficult to remove. It is especially difficult to cope with a wooden floor.
Uric acid contains salt and crystals in the cat's urine, and it is the most difficult element to remove urine. The crystals will contact almost any surface on which they land, and when they get wet, they promote the growth of bacteria, which are the source of the smell.
So why does a cat urinate so badly?
The smell of cat urine is caused by the bacteria that grow in it. Until the bacteria are destroyed, the smell will continue to deteriorate, releasing ammonia and mercaptans (the active ingredient in a clot) into the air. Therefore, to eliminate the smell of cat urine, we must kill the bacteria that cause it.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Because cat urine contains large amounts of ammonia, you should never use ammonia to try to clean it. This will only increase the smell of ammonia, which is likely to attract your cats back to look again at the same place!
What people often do is simply to attack the source of the smell with any household cleaner they can find.
This is mistake.
Due to the organic matter in the cat's urine, some cleaners can actually worsen the smell. I think we can all agree that we don’t want it! We want to make sure that we use a product specifically designed to remove pet stains, so that we do not risk further aggravating the problem.
You have several options available to you to remove the smell of cat urine.
1. Brand name "pet odor removal"
2. Homemade Cat Urine Mixtures
First let me talk about brand name products.
The most famous brand, and sometimes the best, is called “The Miracle of Nature”. This is what is called an enzymatic cleaner. It mainly works to destroy organic matter in the urine and completely eradicate odor.
This is important not only for people, but also for the cat. If they can even smell urine, they will most likely return to the spot and urinate.
In our case, this is what we used to clean our house. To help us identify all the places where the cats repaired, we have invested in black light, which, when kept in a darkened room, will clearly illuminate all of the cat's urine stains. We found this to be very useful, and I really recommend getting black light no matter what kind of cleaning product you decide to use. This was the only possible way for us to be sure that we found all the stains. And one thing you really don’t want to do is go through all the hard work of cleaning your house, just to leave a few spots of urine around that tell your cats, "it's normal to read here."
Then, every time we found a urine stain, fresh or dried, we doused it with wonderful Nature. If he were on a hard surface like a wooden floor, we would thoroughly wipe the area after using the liquid. For stains that were on carpets or upholstery, we completely absorbed it with liquid and allowed the stain to dry in air.
ONE WORD OF WARNING: When you first absorb the area with an enzyme cleaner, it may first create an even worse odor, and you may wonder what is happening. This is the smell of an enzyme that acts on bacteria, destroying it. When the stain is completely dry, the smell should disappear. If not, more soaking may be necessary.
Carpet and upholstery that has been chemically cleaned may be more difficult to remove urine from the enzyme solution, and may require multiple treatments before they are completely clean. That's why I recommend not using professional cleaners if you have not done so already! In our particular case, we had to make carpets and a sofa many times before we finally smell.
We used the wonder of nature, but there are many other similar enzyme products. Some of the most popular are Bramton Simple Solution, OdorXit and Petrotech Odor Eliminator.
There is no doubt that products like Nature's Miracle do an excellent job with removing cat urine. Again, what if I told you that it is easy to do homemade formulas that are usually effective as branded? Many people I know used them with great success.
One really good homemade recipe:
- Exactly 1 quart of hydrogen peroxide (3%)
- 1/4 cup baking
- a teaspoon of liquid soap
What you do is mix all the elements together, and then pour the mixture into a spray bottle. Make sure you are careful when mixing. This can cause a small explosion if you are too rude!
After that, you must completely wet the polluted. Make sure that the fabric to be cleaned does not lose its color by performing a small preliminary test. In some cases, hydrogen peroxide can lead to the disappearance of some materials.
Cleaning cat urine is not a pleasant job, but using a formula like the one described above, you can make sure that all this has happened and that the contaminated area is thoroughly cleaned.
