Cat owners, anyone who owns a cat, or has lived with a cat, you know there is no glamour in cat urine.
It’s gross, it smells, it’s not fun at all. And worse of all, if not handled properly, cat urine can make your house stink no matter how many candles you burn.
So, let’s talk how to easily remove cat urine in every part of your home!
Just because you have a cat that has bathroom issues, doesn’t mean your home has to smell like it.
I know you’re probably feeling frustrated, annoyed, and at the point of breaking. But fear not!
Soon, you’ll know how to get urine out of carpet flooring and how to clean your home in a way that will help to eliminate cat pee odor.
Cat Pee: The Cold, Hard Truth
If your cat has problems making it to the litter box or with inappropriate marking behaviors, your home probably has a cat pee smell. This smell can originate from multiple places including the carpet, walls, clothes, sheets, and other areas in the home.
If left untreated, these areas can become difficult to remove the lingering smells.
I know too many people who have had to replace clothes, carpets, even sheets because they didn’t have the tools they needed to get rid of the smell of their cats spraying.
Cleaning Cat Urine Step One: Preparation
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s start with the important stuff.
Getting the cat urine removed from your home!
The first thing you want to do when preparing to clean cat urine out of anywhere is to gather everything you need for the job. Normally, this include things like gloves, paper towels, detergent, and your favorite or best carpet cleaner for cat urine that you can find.
An idea to make your life easier is to target the spots where the cat urine originated. Separate out the area of your home where the cat pee is so you can focus your efforts on a smaller area.
The same thing is true for sheets and clothing.
You obviously don’t want to have to wash every single pair of clothes you own, just because you forgot which one your cat had an accident on.
Once you have everything you need, and the spot(s) identified, you are ready to start removing cat urine! How Fun! (That was sarcasm I know).
> You May Also Like: The Best Cat Products You Should Be Buying on Amazon
How to Get The Cat Urine Smell out of Carpet
Let’s start with carpet cleaning.
Carpets are an important area to treat because they allow cat pee to sit and settle and that can make your home smell pretty bad. Getting cat urine and more importantly, the smell of cat urine out of your carpet is the main area you want to tackle.
Like I said before, it doesn’t matter how many candles you have burning, windows you have open, or clean clothes that you had.
If your carpet smells like cat urine, your house will smell as well.
Cat urine is incredibly potent, and if it’s been sitting on the carpet for a while, it’s going to be hard to lift out and to relieve the smell.
Not to worry, though.
That’s what I’m here for. I will walk you through how to clean dried cat urine from carpet floors and point out the best enzymed based cleaner for cat urine, which is going to really help with the smell.
What is an Enzmed-Based Cleaner?
Taking a slight pause from cat urine remover, I want to touch-base on what the heck I was talking about just then.
What is an enzymatic cleaner?
How will that help my home not smell?
Enzymatic cleaners are cleaners that are formulated with special ingredients that help to break down the urine. The cleaners basically “eating” the cat pee, and then leave behind items that smell much better.
I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty of that but basically, it’s the odor remover that kills the stink.
I know you don’t want all the chemical and ingredients, so let’s keep it basic.
Find a good enzyme cleaner and urine-cleaning will be so much easier! You can either grab one at local pet stores, or just get this one on Amazon I will talk more about different ones I recommend in my post about my top rated cat urine removers!
Lookout!
How Do You Get The Urine Smell Out of Carpet?
If you have seen your cat urinate somewhere in your home and it is not dried yet, the first step is going to be removing as much urine as possible.
This fast action is crucial.
The more that you remove when it first happens, the less you will have to deal with later and the less that your home will smell of cat urine.
If your cat has urinated on furniture or carpet, you should blot the area with a paper towel to remove most of the urine before you even start deep cleaning.
If your cat has urinated on blankets, clothing, or drapes, you will have to take a different course of action. I usually recommend throwing them in the washing machine if possible.
If they cannot go in the washer, I would take them to a dry-cleaner as soon as possible so they don’t stain or smell.
After you have removed as much urine as possible, you’re going to want to break down the stain that is left with an enzymatic cleaner. This is the stuff we talked about earlier guys!
Next, you should clean the area with a carpet cleaner.
Using a carpet cleaner can remove the stain, and it leaves little mess because it sucks the water back into the tank. It’s important to use this method to rinse the affected area with cool water. A carpet cleaner has been a game changer for my home with pets.
This carpet cleaner has saved my carpets on more occasions than I’d like to admit!
How To Easily Remove Cat Urine From Your Clothes
Ugh, so many of us have been in this situation.
Our clothes smell like us, they bring cat comfort. Which is why a lot of times, declawed cats will pee in our clothes. Soft, warm, and smells like their favorite person.
Especially if there are dirty litter boxes?
Why not?
When your cat pees on your clothes, your first instinct is going to be to throw them immediately into the laundry.
This doesn’t guarantee that the cat pee will completely get out of your clothes, especially if you don’t do some prep work first.
I was guilty of this for so long too! So I understand, but you want to pre-treat the stain before it goes into the wash. Like with other stains, you want to catch it before the urine completely dries.
Getting out the smell will be so much easier if you catch it early. You want to rinse the “pee area” with cold water and use a paper towel to soak up as much of the urine as possible.
DAB DON’T SCRUB!
Trust me! You don’t want to get the stain deeper into your clothes.
How Do You Get Cat Pee Out Of Clothes?
After you have pre-treated the stain like any other old stain you have dealt with in the past, you will want to soak the clothing item(s). Most people recommend first soaking it in a water bath with half-cup of oxygen bleach.
You should leave your clothes in the water for one to three hours.
Once your clothing items are done soaking, you are ready to move on to the next stage of the treatment process. Now, you need to wash them in vinegar.
Mix a cup of vinegar in with three cups of cold water.
Dip your clothes in the solution and afterward, let it sit for a few minutes.I know some people will also add a quarter cup of baking soda to help with the smell as well.
Wash The Cat Pee Out Of Your Clothes
Finally!
You are ready for the washing machine! I am going to go against popular opinion here.
Some people say you need to do this in two steps.
The first step is to wash the clothing in a washing machine in cold water with no laundry detergent and air-drying afterwards. For the second washing, you should use cool water with a detergent that contains enzymes
That is something you can definitely do!
Especially if the cat pee has been sitting for a while. However, if you are like me and have waaaay too much laundry to run load after load for one shirt, then I would just recommend running it like normal.
I would however, run it with cold water.
If you have pretreated it, use a good laundry detergent, and catch it quickly, there should be no smell of cat pee in your shirt after you do that.
But again, just my opinion!
I’m always looking for the easiest way to do things effectively.
Will Cat Urine Smell Ever Go Away?
Now that you have the cat pee out of your carpet and your clothes, you want to deal with the general smell that has been building up in your home forever.
That’s understandable, and you’ll be glad to know that it is much simpler than the previous processes for removing cat urine.
Once you have the cat urine removed from your clothing, carpet, or furniture, everything should start to return to normal.
To speed the process us, you can try to air out your house as much as possible. Open the windows, turn on fans for air movement, and try to cycle through all the stale air.
This fresh infusion of air will help to move out any straggling cat urine odor and help it to dissipate.
You can also start burning those candles and spraying those air freshers now.
Because now they will actually make your home smell delightful!
Does Cat Pee Smell Go Away?
Now you know how to easily remove cat urine for nearly every part of your home.
If you take these steps and make sure that you solve the problem of the cat urinating in the first place, you should be well on your way to a cleaner, better-smelling home.