Pet-Friendly Carpet Cleaning: Removing Pet Stains Made Easy
Your Guide to Eliminating Tough Carpet Stains
We love dogs and cats—they’re just the best. That said, their accidents are the worst. Pet urine is potent stuff and can make an otherwise beautiful room a total disaster.
Thankfully, Oxi Fresh’s professional carpet cleanings for pet owners and specialty odor treatments and carpet sanitizer can erase these issues.
But what if you’re in between cleanings and there’s an emergency? Maybe the party is in a few hours, the family is coming to town tomorrow, or Spot has just left a big spot in the middle of the living room?
Here’s an at-home step-by-step solution to help remove pet stains from carpets.
Step 1: Blot, Blot, Blot the Stain
The moment you spot the stain, you need to act. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to remove pet stains from the carpet.
So, grab clean towels and blot the spot from the outside edge towards the center. Make sure you are blotting—pressing down hard to absorb the urine—rather than scrubbing. A scrubbing motion will spread the urine further.
Likewise, working from the outside edge towards the middle in a circular pattern also helps prevent the urine from spreading.
Step 2: Treat Stain with Cleaning Product
Next, you’ll treat the spot with a cleaning product. We have two recommendations here:
Cleaning Option 1: Enzyme-Based Carpet Cleaner. Enzyme-based carpet cleaning products—especially those specifically formulated for treating pet urine—are the best at-home option for you. The enzymes do good work breaking down urine materials; some are even able to target odor-causing bacteria.
When purchasing an enzyme-based cleaner, try to find a both eco-friendly and pet-friendly cleaning solution designed to target urine. Follow the instructions on the bottle. Generally, you’ll spray the spot, allow for the requisite dwell time, and blot the area dry. (Depending on the product, they may have you repeat this process multiple times.)
Cleaning Option 2: Vinegar Followed by Baking Soda. Another option is to treat the stain with white distilled vinegar and baking soda. While this won’t be effective as an enzyme-based product, these products are always at hand and can help.
Here’s how to use these products to remove pet stains from carpet or at least lighten the stain:
- Mix the white distilled vinegar with water in a 1:1 solution.
- Spray the urine stain and let the product dwell for 5 minutes
- Blot the area dry. Spritz the area with water and blot dry again.
- Sprinkle the surface of the spot with baking soda (a quarter of a cup will work for most stains—you don’t want to go overboard.)
- Let the baking soda sit overnight, and then thoroughly vacuum the area to remove any debris.
A few quick tips:
- You’ll often see online guides suggesting you combine vinegar and baking soda, but this neutralizes the products and decreases their cleaning effectiveness.
- Always test any cleaning product on an inconspicuous part of the carpet to make sure the product won’t cause any color loss or damage.
Step 3: Rinse and Dry Carpet
After removing the pet stain from the carpet, it’s good to give the spot a thorough spritz with warm water and blot it dry once more to remove any residual product or debris. You can speed up the drying process by pointing a fan at the spot.
Bonus Tip! An Ounce of Prevention
If this wasn’t an accident but rather a case of the dog regularly marking in your home, these tips may help you train that behavior out of your pooch. Dogs tend to re-mark areas where they’ve already marked, so while cleaning can help reduce that tendency, training is the real cure in this case.
Once you’ve followed these steps, the pet urine spot should be gone or at least reduced. If it is a particularly stubborn spot, remember that Oxi Fresh’s carpet cleanings for pet owners are always on standby. Our specialty products can treat severe spots, we can remove urine trapped in the carpet pad with our penetrated pet spot treatments, and our Carpet Sanitizer can kill putrefactive (odor-causing) bacteria.
To schedule an appointment for our specialty odor services, give us a call and our friendly Scheduling Center will help. We also offer commercial odor treatment too! You can also schedule normal cleanings through our Online Scheduler.
Thanks to the American Kennel Club and Dana McMahan at Realsimple.com for the great information!
