Ask Mrs. Clean: House Cleaning, Stain Removal and Organizing Tips

[kelseamom]

Help.....one of my two beagle/bassett hound mix is using our new wood desk as his urinal. Now the furniture(wood) has absorbed the odor as has the carpet. PLEASE HELP! The new furniture is ruined as is the carpet, any ideas besides keeping the dogs in the mud room?

[mrscleannw]

Hello kelseamom and welcome to Mrs. Clean's forum!
You have a problem that is very common and also very frustrating, but we can help you out!
As soon as you see that there is a mess to remove any debris that you can without any force as to pick it up rather than smash it down. Secondly, apply a thick padding of white paper towels to the area and blot. Do not rub, but blot to remove as much of the urine as possible from the flooring. This will help you to successfully stop the urine from spreading or further making matters worse.

Use this Home Made Cleaning Solution:
* Mix warm water with white vinegar (50/50 ratio) in a spray bottle.
* Spray onto the area lightly.
* Blot dry.
* This will neutralize the area.
* You can then use a solution made up of baking soda (1/4 cup) with the vinegar and warm water spray.
* Spray onto the area or blot on with towel.
* This will help to get to the pet stain that has been sitting for too long.
* After successfully removing the stain from the flooring, you will want to allow the area to thoroughly dry. Use fans if necessary.
* Then apply a sprinkle of baking soda over the area and allow it to sit over night.
* Vacuum up in the morning. This will insure that odor has been removed as well.

Pet urine stain and odor removal can be successful if you spend enough time getting to the stain. You can also do a search on pet urine on our web site and it will give you info on removing urine stains from all sorts of surfaces.

There are also products available that claim to work on all three components of urine. One that was recommended highly was urine-off. One way to spot urine stains is with a black light. They claim that after you use the product, it will not show up under black light, it will totally be gone! You can visit their website at http://www.urineoff.com.
Another recommendation is Diaper pure.

As far as understanding and trying to prevent your animal from doing this in the future, I found a great website at http://www.dogchatforum.com/dog-marking-inside.htm Try the suggestions there. They not only help you to stop the behavior, but help you understand the reasons behind it.
Good Luck, this should give you plenty of info!
Mrs. Clean

[One eyed Kiwi]

Bare in mind that what you see on the surface (carpets sepecially) is only a small portion of what's actually there. This stain will have spread right into the carpet padding and even into the floor surface itself. So if you think you've removed it all because you can't see it, you haven't. So you can either lift carpet and use above process or cover a larger area with the odour shielding part of above. You may also need to replace the affected part of the padding and re seal the floor.