Urine Odor Removal

If you are potty training kids or have pets that often miss their litter box and do their business in inappropriate places, then you might have a lingering smell in your home, much to your embarrassment. You might have tried various detergents and cleaning products, only to discover that the odor comes back again and again. The reason is, your normal cleaning products only mask urine odor and do nothing to eliminate it completely. You can remove urine odor completely only with the help of products which break the components of urine and clear them. Nonetheless, a few home remedies also work best.

Urine Odor Removal Products

There are basically three types of odor removal products, chemical, bacterial and enzyme. Chemical products contain strong deodorizing agents which mask the urine odor. Enzyme urine removal products break down the enzymes that give urine a strong odor. They also prevent the components of urine from adhering to the surface of the carpet. This facilitates easy removal of stains and odor. Bacterial urine removal agents kill the bacteria responsible for giving urine a foul odor. You can use any of the above types of products depending upon whether the accident happened only lately or you are trying to remove an old, lingering smell from your carpet.

How to Remove Urine Odor

Oftentimes, the source of pet or infant urine odor is difficult to detect. You might just have urine odor everywhere in the home without any stains. In such cases, a black light can be of great help. A black light clearly shows urine stains in fluorescence when seen in darkness. Mark these stains with a chalk so that you can remove them easily, even though they may seem invisible to naked eye. On the other hand if you are combating odor from a puddle of fresh urine, then your first step should be blotting as much of urine as possible from carpet or any other surface. Place clean paper towels on the urine and stomp on them until you remove all the visible traces of urine. Spray any of the above-mentioned urine odor and stain removal product. Allow it to dry for some time. Treat the area with lukewarm water and blot in the same way mentioned above. You can also use a wet vacuum for this purpose.

Another way of removing urine odors at home is using baking soda and water. If dealing with fresh accident, blot the urine as above. Apply the paste of baking soda and water to the area with a toothbrush. Baking soda neutralizes the odors instead of just masking them. As a result the odor does not come back again. Baking soda can be of great help if you are attempting at neutralizing pet urine odor. While removing pet urine odor avoid using ammonia based cleaning products as they encourage your pet to soil the same area again.

Many people find eliminating cat urine odor a very difficult task due to its peculiar strong odor. Cats often mark their territory by urinating or spraying on certain areas or objects. This strong urine odor can be removed using vinegar in equal proportion with water. Simply spray or treat the soiled area with vinegar solution. Initially, the vinegar odor might irritate you, but it will soon fade away along with urine odor.

Make it a point to remove urine odor as soon as possible because the lingering smell of urine might confuse your pets and encourage them to soil at wrong places. Dispose off the towels you use for odor removal in a litter box, so as to hint your pet to use it.