Cat urine in carpet

[thankfulheart]

My family will be moving in with my grandmother to take care of her. She has had a cat that peed in the house. We want to have the carpet cleaned before we move in because we have a couple cats and I'm afraid if they smell the urine smell they might mark. Does anyone know if having the carpets cleaned commercially will take care of any smell that might be lingering in the carpets? It needs to be cleaned no matter what but just wondering if there is something special we should do or ask about when I call for quotes.

[domesticzookeeper]

You'll want enzymatic cleaners to be used, ideally those formulated just for cat urine. Enzymes that *soak* the carpet will break up the smells that other cats will be able to scent (even under detergents and other commercial cleaners).

[thankfulheart]

So we moved in last September. Had new carpet put in upstairs and had the ones downstairs cleaned. We had no problem until a couple months ago. I found something downstairs in the play area that a cat had peed on. I at first thought one of Grams cats had gotten out and peed on it. But then I found some pee on something in the room where she keeps her cats in a cat cage/run. Then weeks later a cat peed on Grams newspapers in her little sitting room...twice. So we started keeping our cats locked upstairs in our living space. That was okay up until a few days ago. I found cat pee on a notebook that got knocked onto the floor...and a purse of mine fell out of the closet and was on the floor...at that point I still wasn't sure which of the two it was, but today...I was sitting on my bed and heard water...and looked at the foot and on the floor a dryer sheet had fallen and she peed on it...with me sitting right here. I am just so stressed out about it. I am cleaning the spots with Nature's Miracle enzyme cleaner but I'm afraid the odor will never really come out and the carpet up here is new. I keep their box very clean, same litter....the only thing I can think of is that it's just this living situation.
I bottle raised these cats and never once did they ever pee out of a box. It started months after we lived here...so I don't know what to think. I know they hate being up here away from us when we're downstairs..but the peeing started before they were locked up here. The urine isn't bloody or anything...and I've seen her going in the box ..so I don't know why she does sometimes and sometimes not. I know that Gram wants me to put her in a cage. I just can't do that , I think that would make it worse. But I'm so stressed she's going to ruin something we can't replace...and this new carpet! ugh. Gram has her two cats caged up because they peed on everything..her furniture, floors, clothes...they are old around 16. And I just hate that they are caged...it breaks my heart to see them in there..mostly because they just don't get the attention they should. She lets them out daily and brushes and pets them in that room...but it just seems sad.

I will call the vet tomorrow, but I honestly don't think she has a UTI. I think she's stressed about this situation here...and I don't know how to fix that. We are looking for a house now...but now that she's peed out of the box I'm afraid she always will because when we move again that will stress her out too.
She'll be 12 years old in December so I guess something *could maybe be going on with her health wise, but I really don't think so.
I can try adding litter boxes around, but her litter box is right there in the landing where she peed on the notebook the other day. So it may not make a difference.

Any advice at all would be helpful!

I just don't know what to do.

[domesticzookeeper]

My older cat was weirdly inconsistent with her litter box usage: absent of health issues, she would start excessively peeing outside of her month roughly once a year It was a nightmare!

Ultimately I took a gamble that she just didn't love using litter. So I started putting puppy pads into empty litter boxes and she was suddenly, consistently faithful to her box Enzyme cleaners worked to make sure the old spots didn't attract her, and puppy pads were not quite as convenient (I flushed the poop and threw away the wet pads), but it was sooo worth not having to worry that she'd stray from her box again. Just something to consider

I agree that I would not see caging as a solution

[Llee]

One of mine person on things she feel are out of place. So if my dd leaves out her backpack on the floor instead of hanging it up, it gets peed on. Not all the times, but enough so that they are motivated to put things away.

[thankfulheart]

I will try the puppy pads. It can't hurt!!



I've been making sure not one thing is on the floor up there...I hope once we move and she feels safe and less stressed this will stop.


We did find a house that we are going to try to buy. It's all hardwood, tile or laminate. No carpet. The family does have a cat and two little dogs...so I guess we'll clean that floor as best we can. How do I clean/sanitize hardwood floors? Only one room has that, the rest is tile or laminate.

[thankfulheart]

UGh! We are packing to move. Weeks and weeks ago, probably around the time I posted on this thread last...we bagged up all Bug's stuffed animals and put them in garbage bags in her closet anticipating moving. There was an old baby blanket of hers thrown on top of them and half on her wooden toy horse stable. Tonight when we were packing we found cat urine on the blanket, dripping down the bags and on the floor. It was sticky and the stuff on the floor was still damp. It was on her wooden horse stable, on one of the horses...like the cat peed up there and it ran in different directions. The stuffed animals didn't have urine directly on them but the ones close to the pee on the outside of the bag had absorbed the cat urine smell. We put those in the wash with some nature's miracle, hoping that the smell will come out. It was faint mostly but there. Some of them were some of her favorites from her bed that we bagged up with the rest just to get them out of the way. She was crying so hard. I just hate this. And I hate that nothing seems to be safe from the cat. I haven't found any spots since last post...so I thought we were good. Now I'm so stressed about moving to our new house, we're not getting the one I mentioned above. There is carpet in the bedrooms, but the rest of the house is tile or laminate hardwood.
What do I use on laminate and tile to get urine off if she should pee on it?