Urine carpet stain removal is one of the most challenging problems to have as a cat owner. I will tell you right now that there is no easy home remedy to remove urine from anything so I recommend that you buy a professional cat urine enzyme-based cleaner and be done with it.
Here’s why regular household cleaners will not clean cat urine stains and smells out of carpet:
A cat’s urine is made up of three components:
Urea – This is the sticky part of the urine.
Urochrome – This is what contains the pigments that give the urine its distinctive color.
Uric Acid – These are crystals that are so hard to remove and cause the terrible odor.
Many regular cleaning products may remove the urine carpet stain and even the odor temporarily but what happens is the Uric Acid crystals dry out and bond tightly to the carpet fibers and as soon as it gets humid or the carpet gets wet the odor comes right back just as strong as ever.
Consider also that there is usually padding underneath the carpet and a wooden floor underneath that. Cat urine will seep through the carpet and padding to the floor so just surface cleaning the carpet is not enough.
To completely remove the cat urine carpet stains you need a cat urine remover that has special enzymes that literally eat the Uric Acid crystals. You also need a black light to show you where the crystals are hiding and to let you know if you got them all otherwise you will continue to have that nasty cat pee smell.
The Internet is filled with countless posts about how to remove cat urine from carpet and the general consensus is any home remedy for cleaning cat urine doesn’t work.
Baking soda, carpet deodorizer, Fabreeze or vinegar just masks the smell and it will come back as the Uric Acid crystals in cat pee are tightly bonded to your carpet, padding and floor. Ammonia will just encourage the cat to pee on the carpet more because ammonia is a part of cat urine and if you don’t clean it your cat will smell the spot and continue to go there.
If the urine is fresh try blotting the spot with a cloth or paper towel gently. Do not rub the spot or you will just make it worse. You can use some cool water and then keep blotting but this often has a tendency to spread the crystals around further. Do no use anything else on the affected area except for an enzyme based urine carpet cleaning product and be sure and follow the directions exactly.