We all love our pets, but for people with carpeting in their homes, pet odors raise special problems.
The best way to avoid pet odor problems is, of course, to not allow the stain to dry. If you know your animal has wet the carpet, dab up the moisture with a dry cloth as well as you can. Then take a slightly moist cloth and dab it a little more. After that apply a pet stain neutralizer which will counteract the natural acidity of urine.
The story is a little different if your pet stain has dried, but first some science. First, urine is sterile and odorless because it’s an acid, but over time the acid breaks down into alkaline salt. Those salts become magnets for moisture and it’s the moisture that allows bacteria, which is what causes the smell, to proliferate. Problem is that it’s difficult to find exactly where the odors come from. Carpet technicians generally use a black light to find the dried outline of the stain. Often water extraction carpet cleaning methods are used, but if there is too much staining, you will need another method.
There are compact machines out there that are great for cleaning pet stains and in fact go right over the stain, but they are fairly expensive and you sort of have to know what you’re doing in order to get the most out of it. In most cases you will need the expertise of a professional to get the stains up.
Written by, Derek Beyer.