Looking for a way to rid a plywood flooring of cat urine smell. Thanks!?
Question:Bought a duplex that had a pungent smell that I couldnt put my finger on. Tore up the carpets and I think it is originating from the subflooring. I want to scrub the plywood before putting down new flooring. Also, can I seal it with something?
Thanks for your wisdom
Answers:
Had the same problem on a home i purchased. I was told to use bleach dilluted with water. It will smell worse when you first start but it does help. I still ended up replacing some of the sub floor where the oder was strongest.
paint it with Kilz it will block the odors.
Is it ply wood or partical board? Either way I would just tear out the cat staned wood and replace it with new wood.
you can try to put some kilz on it and it will kill the odor i had to do it before i laid my flooring down to
Now there is a smell that depending on it's severity nothing short of a wrecking crew can get rid of .
Of course you can try bleach, pine oil , or paint with turpentine , or seal the entire floor with a wood sealer . If all fails tell the landlord to tear up the floor and install a new one . The old tenant should have been held responsible.That is the reason why they hold a security deposit .
Cats are very clean and fastidious creatures. If they go in places other than their litter box it is because there isn't any or it is so filthy that they won't step in it .
Hope you will find a solution soon .
Scrubbing the plywood subflooring will only slightly dilute the urine smell while spreading the offending agent throughout the wood. Not a good idea.
...If the urine stains are concentrated in one area, you'd do best to replace that section... it's reasonably easy to tear out a chunk of subfloor & replace it and will save you YEARS of "Honey, what's that... that SMELL?" LOL!
...But pets being pets, there's nothing to say that replacing a hunk of the subflooring will solve the smell problem 100%... the pets may have pee'd alllllll over for awhile and then honed in on one specific area. Ick.
...So seal the plywood subflooring with KILZ, at least two coats. You should also consider sealing the baseboards and any walls adjacent to the heavily used areas. Dogs MUCH prefer to pee against something, like a wall, rather than merely squatting.
Hope this helps.
TX Griff
I agree with the posters who said Kilz...readily available at Home Depot or similar...
Good luck!
I have a problem with male cats leaving their 'lovely' oderous spray all over my place. I make a solution of water (just a little) and vanilla essence and spray it on the area...depending on the severity of the smell i increase the vanilla ratio. An old lady told me about it...didn't believe it would work, but it did (the stuff from the vet and super market didn't work) - Good luck!!
Paint it with oil based kilz primer. Put a couple coats on. This should take carre of it. Good Luck:)
I wish the suggestions you've gotten so far would work - but your in a heap of trouble. Cat urine is the absolute worst.
Cat urine - called Urea - leaves behind crystals when it dries. Any 'wet' product is going to reactivate the smell when it starts drying out. If it's been there, none of the natural enzyme products will work b/c it's now dried crystal urea.
Bleach won't kill it, and 'essence of vanilla' is just going to mask it (if you get lucky). Anytime those crystals get wet - the smell is going to come back. If you live in an area of high humidity - it's going to be an ongoing smelling problem.
My suggestion is that you takeup the subflooring entirely. Depending on how many times the flooring was pee'd on - the urine could literally have soaked into the wood. I had to replace carpet, and padding - and finally after realizing the smell wasn't going away - realized it was in the strips of wood used to tack the carpet down. I replaced those and the smell was gone.
I have a concrete foundation - so I used Kilz to seal the concrete in a very large area to prevent anything from coming back out of the concrete.
If you need to figure out what areas have been 'hit' - get a black light from someone, turn off your lights and look for the glow in the dark spots. Cat urine will light up like dayglo.
Good luck.
Scrubbing it, spraying it or covering it with paint and/or sealant will only be a band-aid fix. Go to a pet store and get the black light that makes the urine and/or other "accidents" light up. Circle all obvious spots. You may think there's only one place, but there may be several. If there's only one or two, take the old plywood up and replace it. Home Depot and Lowes will cut plywood for you, if there's a piece or pieces that need cutting. Also, while you're checking the flooring, use the light around the lower part of your walls and baseboards because you may find some more "presents". There is no product or nothing you can do to completely eliminate the smell. I know, because I bought a house which had the same problem. I tried everything, and every time it rained or the humidity got high, the smell would be back. I spent more money on odor elimination products than what it would have cost if I would have simply replaced the subfloor originally. It would be a shame to reinstall new padding and carpet and have to tear it up later to eliminate the smell. Replace the subfloor where the light shows the damage while the carpet is torn up, because you will ultimately end up doing it down the road. Also, if you replace the carpet and padding over the urine stains that is in your subflooring, it will seep into your new padding/carpet and you will end up not only tearing up the new padding and carpet to replace the stinky subfloor, but will have to replace the new padding and carpet because the stench will seep into it. Hopefully, you will be surprised when you check out your subfloor with the black light and there will only be one or two places, and it will be an inexpensive replacement of the subfloor. Good luck to you!
you need to seal the subflooring get some kind of pet order eater before you seal it.
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