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Getting rid of cat smell in your house
weirdspaceships
i will eat your still-beating heartRegistered User regular
i will eat your still-beating heartRegistered User regular
I'm making a lot of threads over here! Okay, probably just this one more. My house smells strongly of cat. I've gotten used to the smell, but if guests come over, it's like running into a brick wall, bam, very strong.
My room-mate has a cat, and I have two. Our two parties of cat don't get along, so mine stay in the bedroom (where they are very happy, it seems - they resist any and all escape attempts, they just want their privacy). But the whole house is just cat stink central.
I need something that will get rid of that smell. The room-mate has converted the old laundry area into his cat's litter room, and hardly ever changes the litter. It's a pretty disgusting little nook, not blocked off by any kind of door, leading straight into the kitchen. Everything that isn't my bathroom and my bedroom has no door, as my room-mate "doesn't believe in them," so everything is free and open. Whatever, I have doors, that's all I care about.
So I'd like to kill the smell throughout the house. We've put down the Arm & Hammer baking soda stuff in the carpet that kills pet odors, and Febreezed like machines, but it's still there. Is there anything we can do that doesn't involve ripping up carpet or anything extreme?
My room-mate has a cat, and I have two. Our two parties of cat don't get along, so mine stay in the bedroom (where they are very happy, it seems - they resist any and all escape attempts, they just want their privacy). But the whole house is just cat stink central.
I need something that will get rid of that smell. The room-mate has converted the old laundry area into his cat's litter room, and hardly ever changes the litter. It's a pretty disgusting little nook, not blocked off by any kind of door, leading straight into the kitchen. Everything that isn't my bathroom and my bedroom has no door, as my room-mate "doesn't believe in them," so everything is free and open. Whatever, I have doors, that's all I care about.
So I'd like to kill the smell throughout the house. We've put down the Arm & Hammer baking soda stuff in the carpet that kills pet odors, and Febreezed like machines, but it's still there. Is there anything we can do that doesn't involve ripping up carpet or anything extreme?
weirdspaceships on
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Tycho: So just air the place out, basically?
Yes, airing out in conjunction with a thorough clean and constant vigilance are the only ways to be sure. Once you get it down to a certain point, auto-release air fresheners should help go the final distance. You'll need the air fresheners because lets face it; cats go whenever they please and if they can't find a litter box they won't hold it in for very long at all. And since you can't be there all the time, there WILL be going-stale leavings to greet you when you come home...
Get on your roommate about changing the litter. Every day. The easiest thing to do is buy rolls of dog poop bags (the ones that people take on walks with them) and just scoop the dirty litter into one of those every day, tie it up, put it in the garbage.
Fucking cats.
Uhm, it's not your cats, it's you guys not taking care of their litterboxes.
And yeah, Nature's Miracle is good.
The thing with Nature's Miracle is that, while it works great, I don't know how you would apply it to a general pervasive stink rather than at specific pee incidents. For the pervasive smell, I think you have to go with shampooing or discarding all cloth surfaces (carpet, couches, curtains), spending a lot of time with the windows open, and of course, getting those roommates to stay on top of that litter box!
You can rent shampooers or steam cleaners from places like Home Depot, and that should help a lot. I don't suppose that for the going forward plan, there's some way you could have the cat boxes be outside the house? I've seen some people set aside caged areas outside accessible by cat door.
When you buy litter, get an big box of baking soda from the baking isle.
Before you put in the new litter, put down a good coating of baking soda all along the bottom of the pan.
Put the litter on top...and then shake the pan back and forth to distribute evenly.
I know they sell cat litter that already has baking soda in it, but they never add enough.
Also, how often do you change the litter. Its not enough just to remove the clumps. That's just maintenance. You need to completely swap the litter out roughly every 5-7 days.
Another big thing - grooming. Get a Furminator and brush the hell out of your cats on a regular basis. The cats will come to love it and it will remove the excess hair...that is the 2nd most smelly thing about cats. Buildup of fur in the carpet and on cloth surfaces will make the place smell like cats. Here is a good test..rub your cat until it rolls onto its bell and the bury your nose in the belly fur. If you recognize that smell as "the cat smell" then you've found the culprit. Remember that the cats belly is whats going to flop onto the ground and rub against everything you own...if it smells like yuck, then yuck is what everything smells like.
2) Use litter crystals instead of paper/cardboard litter. They absorb odours much better and don't need to be changed anywhere near as often. We go 1.5-2 weeks between changing the litter. You only need to scoop out solid waste.
3) wait. it will take time for the smell to dissipate.