Warning: The photos in this post may cause nausea, disgust, upset stomach, and even trigger a gag reflex. It did me. Don't say I didn't warn you.
So, last weekend, The Hubs and I were struggling. You see, our house had been invaded. It had been permeated with one of the most awful scents known to humans. Get ready... hold your nose... yes... Cat Pee.
It is gross. It is awful. It is embarrassing. It downright disgusted me to walk into my own house. Don't get me wrong, my cats are litter box trained. This isn't a cat that doesn't know where she or he needs to go. This is a cat who, well, is a tad on the wild side. In fact, you voted below, and I'm adding several of my own votes...the offender is This Devil Cat!
She's a cutie, absolutely. But she was rescued a tad too late to keep her from having that feral attitude of "Mine!" So, earlier this spring/summer, we had our windows open and some of the other feral cats in our neighborhood started coming by the house, I assume to play Pee War with my cat(s). This Devil Cat decided to take them up on their challenge, and started marking near the front door. UGH! We were able to keep up with it for a while, thanks to Nature's Miracle, with the exception that this product stained our rug terribly. But after a while, something just wasn't right. And it was nauseating to walk in our out of our house.
Last Saturday, I woke up pretty early to find that The Hubs was also (surprisingly) awake, and sitting in the middle of our upstairs living room, brushing the shedding fur out of one of our dogs (and later our "fat boy" cat). I sat on the couch watching him and chatting, when I bemoaned our fate and asked, "what are we going to do about this smell?!"
The Hubs said, "if only it would cool down so we can open our windows and air out the house." I replied, "That would only make things worse because she (the Devil Cat) will smell the outside marking and start marking MORE. If we could just find the true source, maybe we could take care of it." The Hubs put down the brush and walked down to the landing near our door. He sniffed around and came up choking and eyes watering. He found the source, under a metal, decorative chair in the corner by our door. He took the last of our Nature's Miracle, which wasn't nearly enough for what was needed, and poured it over the spot. Then I said, "If only we knew what was under the carpet, then I might want to just pull it up and be rid of it!"
Let me interject that we bought this house 10 years ago, and it was owned by one woman/family since it was built in the 1960's. We have discovered that it's quite the surprise what we've found beneath wallpaper and other "coverings" in the house. I'm always scared to look!
The Hubs, energized from his choking and gasping and inspired by my "suggestion", said, "Let's find out!" and went downstairs to get some tools. One thing led to another and, among a few Tim-the-Toolman-Taylor animal grunts, The Hubs gave us a whole new look and, even more importantly, a Cat-Pee-Free smelling house! Check out his handy dandy work, and all before 10:30 AM!
This is the offending area, top-left corner.
The remarkably huge mark/stain is actually from
pouring Nature's Miracle on the carpet just
prior to this activity...
Let me interject again that no way Jose would I have ever chosen to put WHITE carpeting in a house with kids and pets. It came that way. And as you can see from the photos, it didn't stay white once we moved in!
The opposite corner, where The Hubs pulled a piece up
to see what was beneath...
Pulling up the carpet to see the gross, stained carpet mat
beneath. That spot on the bottom step there is also
stained from the Nature's Miracle. Guess our carpet
didn't like that product. No matter anymore.
By the way, can you see how helpful I was? I decided the best place for me was sitting on the couch and hanging over the back and the stair railing to take photos from 'above'. It was a great vantage point, AND, I was out of the way of The Hubs!
Look at The Hubs go! The carpet is gone from the landing,
and so is the Cat Pee smell! The carpet and mat came
up and went right out the front door. He was breathing
much easier by this point.
You can't really see the detail of the tile on the landing, but it's white "crackle" and complete ages my house. But, if I have to choose between aging my house and Cat Pee Stench, I choose the tile, over and over and over again!
A huge sigh of relief that the stairs were actually wood, and
NOT tile! I was very excited when The Hubs uncovered
the first step...
Pretty steps! I was excited to get the rest of the carpet
off the steps leading down into our basement..
But they were white crackle tile too. *sigh*
Oh well... it's better than stinky carpet!
Finished! It isn't perfect, but SO much better!
And only one boo-boo!
Whoops! Forgot to warn you about the ghostly white
of The Hubs' legs. No worries, I out-white him 100%
believe it or not!
You are lucky that just pulling up the carpet did the trick! When we did that, we found the cat pee had seeped through carpet and padding and actually soaked into the plywood sub-floor. It took us days of scrubbing and sanding to get rid of the smell!
ReplyDeleteThis has to be the primary reason that I am not a cat person. I've had four in my lifetime and after they were all gone, I never went back to cat...they are stinky little devils! and their cuteness factor is HIGH, so they never seem to be in trouble for being stinky devils...sigh...its that CUTENESS....
ReplyDeleteLove the wooden stairs. Not so much on the white crackle, but it could be worse. The only problem I've ever had with cat pee was that our cat is too big for his litter box and kept peeing out the back. But I finally got him a covered litterbox and haven't had any problems since. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, you poor things! We've never had a cat but our house was empty for a while before we bought it and the local cat population had adopted our garden as a big litter tray during that time. ICK!
ReplyDelete