steam cleaning carpet that previously 4 cats lived on.. HELP!

BriGiboo · March 2012

we are purchasing a short sale and were allowed to go in and start cleaning it. after using rainbow vacs to pull all the crud, sand, litter, cat puke, and layer of cat hair off the rug we are ready to steam clean it before vac it again. My concern is that as the home has been empty for 2 years and currently doesnt stink. If i soak it down with a steam cleaner and heat it up will I be asking for the house to smell like cat pee? I plan to use vinegar and water to clean the carpets instead of the normal cleaning solution because I had hoped it would nutralize any kitty smells before my two male dogs move in. I dont want to remove the carpet because its actually really good quality and fairly new. besides being dirty, we coudnt replace 2500sqf of carpet right now. Any thoughts or experiance with stuff like this would be great! thank you all in advance

MontereyBride · March 2012

My advice?

Rip out the carpet and pad.

If you're on a slab, wash it down with Nature's Miracle.

If you're on a wood subfloor... I got nothin. You could probably do the same with the Nature's Miracle. I'm not sure how that would work. Bare minimum, I'd replace the pad and carpet.

Ew.

Prulove · March 2012

Definitely rip up the carpet and pad. Better to live with a bare floor than cat pee smell.

Jliongrrrl · March 2012

Ditto pp's, just get rid of that carpet. It will def smell worse when you get everything wet again.

dairygirl19 · March 2012

I would try a service called ChemDry and see what happens. They hardly use any water at all and there "solution" is apparently all natural.

I did it with great results. It was fairly affordable so I'd give that a whirl first. I wouldn't attempt to steam clean that myself I guess...wayyy too much water involved.

If that doesn't work..rip out the carpet for sure. Yick.

MNVegas · March 2012

Agree with others, I would replace the carpet.

BriGiboo · March 2012

hmmm might look into the chem dry people. ripping out the carpet isnt an option until we get the house we are in at least on the market. I am a stay at home mom with a small online business. Adding new carpet to hubbys stress wouldnt go over well at the moment

lshoes32 · March 2012

Just because the cats lived there doesn't mean they peed on the carpet. I've had cats all my life, and while there has been plenty of barf from a few of them (thankfully, not the current ones!), there hasn't been pee. ChemDry should help with the grunge, and their tech can probably tell you if there is cat pee on the carpet.

BriGiboo · March 2012

thank you that is what I was hoping. I have only had one cat and she never ever had an accident but plenty of puke from hair balls and hair everywhere...They were persians so I am really really hoping we dont have any suprises

Temp6313048411121614 · March 2012

I definitely think that if there's pee it will smell horrible. I wouldn't go straight with ripping it out and I'm cheap so I'd be attempting to clean it myself. I would definitely start with vinegar, then maybe a pet shampoo. You should be able to suck up a bunch of water, the cleaner I have, if I don't hold down the button it doesn't release any water but just sucks it up, if I go over the same spot a few times it gets most of the water up. GL.

arborgold · March 2012

Honestly, even after two years if the cats were urinating on the carpet, you'd be able to smell it. The fact that you don't smell anything now is good news.

I'd go ahead and try to do the steam cleaning and if, for some odd reason, you do notice that ammonia odor, THEN go ahead and rip up the carpet. Like pp's said - better to live with a bare, uncarpeted floor than to live with carpet soaked in cat pee.

nital · March 2012

I use the steam cleaner with an enzymatic cleaner.

This stuff is spends, but concentrated and awesome. http://www.gotpee.net/order-now/got-pee-odor-eliminator-1-gallon/

BriGiboo · March 2012

thank you ! I love these ideas..we are going to try to steam clean it with the vinegar solution tomorrow. Fingers crossed that we dont smell anything

bugandbibs · March 2012

At the pet store, they sell an ammonia neutralizer for fish tanks. You mix it with water and use for the initial cleaning/rinsing of the carpet.

Although, if it's not smelling now there probably isn't too much pee in the carpet.

BriGiboo · March 2012

Update: so far so good got half the house done last night with the steam cleaner and vinager/water mixture. No pee smells yet just had to stop several times to get all the cat hair out of the machine. The carpet also seems to be beige lol not the cream I thought it was...seems the cream color is a-la-cat hair. The fun of a shortsale

We plan to let the carpet dry, vac it again and then steam clean again.

Doodle2011 · March 2012

try getting a black light and seeing if that captures any staining. That will show you if the cats peed on it and where you need to focus attention. Google black light cat urine and a bunch of products come up, this being one:

http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Solution-Spotter-Ultraviolet-Detector/dp/B0002XAIP2

steam cleaning carpet that previously 4 cats lived on.. HELP!

Re: steam cleaning carpet that previously 4 cats lived on.. HELP!

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