Just bought a SFH, house is currently empty, old tenants pretty much trashed the place and found out that they were breeding pitbulls in the basement. Basement now STINKS like dog urine, I know there’s TONS of products out there for removing the odor. Any recommendations for specific ones or home remedies or whatever! Help!
If it’s carpeted… you can forget about keeping it. The odor is in the pad. You will have to remove the carpet and the pad. Then… put Thompson’s Water Seal on it, whether concrete or wood, then recarpet.
If you think it’s also on the drywall, I would probably put Kilz Primer on it from the ground to two feet or something, then repaint. Odor eliminated.
Nature’s Miracle is a great product. It gets rid of bloodstains, food stains, and I assume pet doodoo and urine. It may help get rid of odor too, but I’ve only used it for small stains, not what you’re describing. It doesn’t work well if the carpet has already been treated with another cleaner first, but it sounds like there’s no danger of that with your tenants. :rolleyes
Edit: I just looked at NM’s website, they have odor products too. Pet stores should carry it–that’s where I bought mine.
The smell is really only in the basement, so were just dealing with concrete floors, thanks for the tips!
BacZymes is good. Biological odor in this situation is created by microbes eating proteins in urine. The actual odor is the biproduct or waste of the microbe. Think of it like microbe farts :smile
Eliminate the proteins and you eliminate the microbe food. BacZymes takes a little while to work but will even eliminate cat urine which is much more potent than dog urine.
Cheapest fix for dog urine in carpet is plain old white distilled vinegar. Replacing the carpet is not necessary, and if this is done correctly, no one will ever know the tenants used your house for a dog toilet. Hire a starving carpet installer to remove & reinstall; do all the vinegar stuff yourself.
If it’s just a few spots (locate them with a black light), pour the vinegar on the spot --undiluted-- using enough to go through the pad, getting the carpet & pad fairly wet. The vinegar will neutralize the urine and the smell will be gone. It will smell like vinegar for 3-4 days, but you can air out the room/house and that smell will go away.
If the dog urine is all over the place, pull up the carpet, remove and discard the pad, then turn the carpet upside down. Using a 2 gallon garden sprayer full of pure vinegar (do NOT dilute), spray the bottom side of the carpet (which is now facing up). Use lots of vinegar on the urine stains, which will be visible. You want the vinegar to soak into the wood, which will remove the urine smell. Use fans & open windows to dry out the carpet & the floor. When dry, install new pad & reinstall the carpet. Then have a professional (truck-mounted) carpet cleaner clean & deoderize the carpet everywhere.