Monday, October 6, 2008

how to clean cats urine on your carpet

It isn’t just anyone who could get away with peeing on our rugs. It’s a good thing we love our cats so much, or they likely wouldn’t get away with it either. It’s frustrating when they do it though, as it’s an unpleasant thing to clean up. No one wants to don the rubber gloves, and goodness knows that smell alone can knock you flat.

Why your cat is peeing in the house
Rest assured; your cat isn’t doing it to annoy you. If your cat is going outside his litter pan, there’s a reason for it and you’ll probably want to speak to your vet about it. Some cats continue to mark their territory long after they have lived there, backing up to vertical surfaces, lifting their tails and shooting a horizontal stream of urine onto places like your walls or your couches. You’ll know if your cat is doing this by finding small stains. But, if your cat is leaving large puddles in sleeping areas or on horizontal surfaces, chances are, it isn’t healthy marking, but stress or illness that’s causing the pee-pee incidents.

Be prepared to clean up
To be prepared to clean up accidents, have a bucket in your utility closet that’s stocked with kitty accident clean-up tools. You’ll want rubber gloves as cat urine can be caustic. Keep a supply of sponges, absorbent cloths, paper towels and an enzymatic cleanser (more on that later) in there as well. One of the most important tools though, will be a black light. Cat urine will show up under this light. Old stains will be dimmer than others, but new stains will light up like the Fourth of July. So, if you are walking around the room and can’t quite put your finger on where that odor is coming from; turn out the lights and run the black light over the carpet until you find the culprit stain.

How to clean a stain
If the stain is fresh, use the absorbent cloth to blot up as much of the stain as you possibly can. Do not rub the stain; this will only make the odor worse as you’ll be spreading it around. Rinse it with warm water and blot it again. Cover it with paper towels and really put your weight on it. Throw some books on there or stand on it to soak up the rest of the urine for about thirty seconds or so before you add the enzymatic cleanser. If the stain is old, follow the same procedure, but start the process by covering the area with clean water first to sort of, “revive” the stain.

Once you’ve completed this step, apply the enzymatic cleanser of your choice. These really need a good chance at working, so cover the area with a blanket or even with some tin foil and weight it down so your kitty doesn’t go knocking the covering off and starting the process all over again. Keeping the area covered helps keep the area wet and saturated with product long enough to let the enzymes work on the stain. Follow the specific instructions for the cleanser you’ve chosen though.

When you’re done, remove the covering and try a pheromone product like, Feliway to discourage your cat from continuing to pee in the same area, or at all. Feliway mimics your cat’s facial hormones and is thought to make your cat calmer and less likely to mark or urinate due to stress. It is available in both a spray and a diffuser that you can plug into a wall outlet.

http://www.cats.com/article/catcare/litterbox/getting-urine-stains-out-of-the-carpet/ -- articel from CATS.com

2 comments:

nature321 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
nature321 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.