Whisper, Jasmine, Bodhi, Gizmo, Luna, Silver, Sweetums, O'Malley, Siggy, and Gyda. For those of you counting, that's ten. TEN cats. and they all live in my house. Yes, TEN housecats. All are fat, healthy, happy, and totally content being housecats. How does one go about collecting this many cats? Well, apparently once you get to number three... which we did... by ourselves... People decide "Oh.... they have three, what's one more?" Sometimes they are delivered to you. Other times, you pick up the dog from the groomer and come home with a cat too. Because.. well... she fell out when the dog was shaved? No wonder the dog was so hairy, she was carrying around a whole cat in there, WHO KNEW?!
Regardless of the circumstances behind your new position in life as Cat Slave, there will come a point in the lifetime of your cat that you will have to deal with the dreaded...stubborn cat pee stink. Whether it's in your laundry, your carpet, in some hidden place on a hard floor that you can smell but you can't find.. It's going to happen!! And then you will ask your cat... Why? The cat doesn't know, honestly, the cat doesn't even really care. There can be reasons, such as your cat is sick. A sick cat will pee outside of the litter box. How about stress? A stressed cat will pee wherever they damn well please and you're just going to have to deal with that fact. Old age can be a factor as well! In my experience it's honestly VERY rare that there is a sick cat in the house just peeing willy-nilly. Do your cat a favor though, before you get angry and toss Puss out the door because you just can't deal with it anymore, or you dump Tom at the shelter because he's just a bad boy and can't get it... Realize first of all, that there may have been a reason for the behavior, especially if Tiger was always good about the box before. Getting rid of the cat is unfair to the cat, and you're STILL going to have to deal with that stink. Getting rid of Princess won't magically make that smell disappear!
I was always THAT cat-mom. You know that house you visit and you see a cat... and then you see another cat and you say "Whoa! I didn't realize you had cats!" Yeah, that was my house. I had a New Zealand Giant rabbit living IN MY HOUSE and nobody knew she was there if I didn't say anything. Because there was no smell. Because I am so on top of everything. My house smelled fresh and clean. Even when we got to cats number 8 and 9, who arrived on the same day. My home did not smell like pets. Ever. And then some things happened. I had some... boarders for a while. And the stress of having more people in the house took a toll on my cats. And it just snowballed completely out of control and there it stayed for months. I FINALLY have a handle on it thanks to some awesome people in a Facebook group. It also helps that the boarders have all left the premises.
Laundry
Who wants to stand in gravel? Have you stepped on cat litter? Not the greatest sensation in the world. For cats it's pure instinct to use sand or litter to do their business. But sometimes, that fresh laundry from the dryer that you left in the basket because you had to go peel a piece of candy out of your 5 year old's hair is simply too tempting. And you didn't even realize it happened until four days later because you had to go to the grocery store, and that doctor's appointment, and for some reason children think that they need to eat EVERY DAY. There is always something that needs to happen RIGHT NOW, so laundry gets shoved aside.
Now, the inevitable has happened. You picked a t shirt out of the basket to throw on... and it reeks! NOW WHAT?!
Never fear... I got this.
Wash the load again, but this time add one cup of lavender Fabuloso (or the Great Value equivalent, both are sold at Walmart by the gallon, I have yet to pay more than $5 for either product). Wash and dry as usual. Cat pee be gone! And I just have to note, this also removed ring around the collar and sweat stains/smell without bleaching.
The Fabuloso method works great for lighter weight fabrics such as t shirts, leggings, jeggings, etc. But towels and blankets can be tricky, and we'll throw those amazing fleece pajama pants into the mix as well. Admittedly, I have lost a few pairs of these pants, but I've also been able to SAVE them too. For the pajamas, wash them as a separate load, use your regular detergent, and add one cup of Fabuloso. When the wash cycle has finished, BEFORE you put the items in the dryer SMELL THEM. Even wet from the washer you will be able to smell cat urine. IF it doesn't work the first time, then wash them again. There have been instances that I have had to triple wash certain items before the smell was gone completely. But it's worth it to save those comfy pants. Apply this method to fleece blankets as well, but wash the blankets in a hot cycle.
Towels. I find it less painful to simply have white towels. Honestly. When I can buy towels, I buy white towels. But I do still have the myriad of colored towels picked up here and there. If your precious kitty pees on your towel, and you find it (or witness it, because let's get real, they will look you in the eye and pee on that towel on the floor), toss it in the wash, HOT water, regular laundry detergent and 1 cup of lavender Fabuloso. (I should work for whoever makes that product because I have given them so much business!). If the towels were washed and dried and you didn't notice the smell of cat urine until you were using the towel to dry off after your relaxing hot bath because you had a long day and just needed a glass of wine and some hot water... this may require triple washing as discussed above. Always wash towels in hot water. If by the third wash your towels still have the odor of baked cat pee, well, then bleach is your best friend. I'm a mom on a budget, a very tight budget. My towels are not here to be pleasing decor for guests. If my pretty blue towel was washed three times and it still smells, it goes in with the bleach. I use it to dry my body, not to please your eyeballs. I don't care if it now has yellow spots on it, it doesn't STINK!!
Upholstery
This totally depends on the upholstery. My couch is a chocolate brown microfiber/"leather" sectional. I love my couch. Even if it is now marred-- I mean decorated with love with cat scratches! I also have 5 children. My furniture is typically shampooed every couple of months depending on what happens to it. Sometimes more, sometimes less. We did have "The Incident" though. Our senior lady, Jasmine. Such a diva. She loved her boy so much. She spent 23 hours a day with him. And then he left. Her boy joined the military and was gone for nearly a year. When he took leave and came home he immediately picked up Jasmine and hugged her. The look on her face should have been warning enough. He was gone forever, and now he comes home and thinks she still loves him? THINK AGAIN, BUDDY! She patiently waited till it was bedtime. And after her boy was good and asleep, Miss Jasmine casually got up there with him. And she nuzzled his face, checking to see if he was still awake. And when he didn't stir.... She peed on his head. This actually happened, I cannot make this up. By the time he had to catch his plane to get back to his duty station, we had to wash all of his clothes, his enormous bag, and shampoo my couch.
Thankfully, we knew about this incident when it was fresh. I pretreated with Nature's Miracle. And I don't mean that I lightly misted it on like some Febrez and called it good. No, I SOAKED that area with Nature's Miracle. In the trusty carpet cleaner I used hot water, 4 ounces of Fabuloso, and 4 ounces of Great Value Carpet Shampoo pet formula. Cat urine zapped before it had a chance to smell.
That also applies to mattresses if the unthinkable should happen. My five year old's mattress is a magnet. I don't know why, the cats don't know why, so don't ask. He's not a bedwetter, so really there is no reason. Shampoo thoroughly and leave the sheets and bedding off until the mattress is dry. And probably keep the bedroom door closed from now on if that's possible.
Carpet
So everything else is done and smells great... but the carpet is so bad. It shouldn't be, but it is. You've done the Fabuloso trick, you have been through GALLONS of Nature's Miracle. You have used enzyme cleaners, peroxide, commercial grade cleaners, everything anybody claims will neutralize cat pee... and it's still there, you even shelled out the money to have your carpet professionally cleaned because they guaranteed they could take care of that, no problem.... but it's still there. So now, you're banging your head on the wall any time you have to have guests because if YOU can smell it, it's bad... and people that don't live with you and are not nose-blind to your home look at you like you're some disgusting slob because they were assaulted at the door by the Wall o' Stink. Your bratty teenager complains when she leaves her room "Ugh, mom it STINKS in here!" But I did the thing! I did all the things! I shampoo every week! I swear! Don't worry. You're not crazy. Your carpet is clean. It truly is!
The foam pad that lives under your carpet though.. That is a festering cesspool of stinky kitty pee because you only treated the surface, you didn't soak all the way down. So what now? who knows how many months that has been festering in there. And once it's there, cats keep coming back to it and just making it worse! You may not always smell it, but you can BET your cat does! And so do your guests.
I gave those Jackson Galaxy steam cleaner tabs a try. He claims that they not only remove cat urine, but they also prevent remarking by cats because they remove the smell completely! Maybe if you don't have a pad under your carpet they work fantastic! In my experience, they did NOT clean well, and within 48 hours my cats were back to marking the exact same problem areas from before I used them. Waste of $16 plus shipping.
Step One
Go to your local dollar store. It's amazing the products they carry now. But this one could be...awkward. Lucky me, my husband went and picked this up for me...and he loved every minute of it. Fresh Scent Disposable...Douche.
Pick your jaw up off the floor, I'm not kidding. For my particular job, hubby picked up 24 boxes. That's 2 cases of douche. Each box holds 2 bottles. So, I got 48 bottles of this stuff for $24 + tax. Not bad. Considering how much other cleaning products cost. I should note now that out of those 24 boxes, I have 13 left. I would rather have more than I need than not have enough!
Step Two
Pick up all debris. Toys, candy wrappers, everything. Cut me some slack, it's the day after Halloween and I have kids! Now it's time to vacuum. And I mean vacuum like your life depends on it. I spent 20 minutes just vacuuming the living room.
Step Three
Pretreat. This is key. You cannot skip this step. Full strength douche. Just dump 4 bottles (may need a couple more) into the clean tank of your carpet cleaner, attach the hose and upholstery tool, and spray. Start with the bad spots. SOAK those spots. SOAK. They always say "Avoid over-wetting your carpet", screw that. SOAK them. For me, the bad spots were around the edges of the room. Two corners in particular. So I soaked those spots and then double sprayed the rest of the edges of the room, meaning I did 2 passes just spraying the douche solution onto the carpet.
Step Four
Take a break. You earned it. Besides, that stuff needs to sit for about 15 minutes anyway.
Step Five
Now it's time to dig in. I used 3 bottles of douche and filled the rest of my clean tank with HOT water. HOT, I cannot stress this enough, the water has got to be HOT. I also have one extra note here... The belt snapped on my upright machine. That's all that's wrong with it. Because the brushes don't spin I have to use the hand tool. Yes, for the whole floor. But in this particular instance, I think that was a good thing because I was able to put a bit more pressure on the floor and pull up quite a bit more than I usually can with the upright suction. Shampoo as normal! 2 wet passes, 4 dry passes. In the pretreated spots, 1 wet pass, and then dry passes until you are no longer pulling up yuck. I shampooed just 5 days before I came to this end. In the spots that I KNOW are REALLY bad, I was pulling up yellow/brown SLUDGE. In the middle of the room ,where I know there have been no incidents, the water was coming back up nearly clear. So I didn't stress too much there. I hit all of the edges twice. The second time the water was still brown, but not sludge. I don't know HOW this
worked exactly, but it worked.
Step 6
Dump 4-6 bottles of full strength douche into the clean tank again. Only douche, if there was any water left from your last pass, go ahead and dump it at this point. Using the hose/tool go back over the entire floor and spray everything again. Just a quick spritz. When you get to the end, suck it all back up again!
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The last thing I did is optional... I mixed 10 drops of peppermint essential oil in water, shook it up, and sprayed the hot spots. You can also substitute the essential oil with two tablespoons of peppermint extract.
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I know this sounds insane. But my opinionated 16 year old came downstairs while I was in the middle of this project and for the first time in months did not say "Ugh, it just smells like wet cat pee in here, why do you bother?" No, the monster was genuinely surprised and said, "Wow, MOM! It doesn't just smell like wet cat pee!"
I don't know exactly what it did, but it did SOMETHING. I recommend this method. Checking in the place where I have previously had to pull up a corner of the carpet (because my cats just love me so), 48 hours later, not only was the smell 100% GONE, the staining on the backing of my carpet was also gone. I did not use any carpet shampoo or multi-purpose cleaner to do this job, only fresh scent douche from the dollar store. I didn't experience any bleaching, my carpet is chocolate brown just like it was before. I'm not responsible if this ruins the color of your carpet!