Dallas, TX - Pets can be a great addition to a family and provide a lot of comfort and love for years. The challenge with having a pet in the home is that there is always the chance of an accident where the pet relieves themselves on the carpet. If not treated, this urine can ruin a carpet and the flooring beneath it. It is a problem that will likely grow worse as well since pets like to stay in a familiar area to relieve themselves and will detect the odor from previous bathroom trips.
Once an accident has occurred, you need to remedy the situation quickly. This requires a cleaning of the area and a re-training of the pet to let them know where they should be relieving themselves. This may be as simple as taking one of the soiled paper towels from the cleanup effort and placing it in the proper area for the pet. This way they can detect their scent and know that this new area would be a good place to relieve themselves in the future.
The first thing you need to do when starting a pet stain cleanup is to figure out how big of an area is stained. You can do this by blotting the carpet in a circle to try to find the edge of the stain. You can also use a black light to see the actual urine stains as well. When you use one of these black lights in the dark, they will illuminate the urine in the carpet and show you exactly what the extent of the stain really is. Once you know how much of the carpet needs cleaning you’re ready to attack the area. If you have gotten to the area quickly, you need to remove as much of the liquid as possible before trying to deal with the stain. This liquid is easier to remove now than after it dries, and the more you can eliminate, the better the chances of avoiding an odor later. To remove this liquid, blot the area with paper towels and newspaper. A good technique to use is to place a layer of paper towels on the carpet, cover it with a later of newspapers and then stand on the area, or place a few phonebooks on the paper to weigh it down. This will allow you to leave the area while the paper towels absorb the liquid. You need to continue this process until the paper towels are dry. If there was a lot of liquid to start, you may be better off peeling back the carpet to expose the padding and flooring beneath it. You can cut and remove the padding and then dry the floor directly. This works better than trying to draw the liquid back up through the carpet. You can easily replace this padding when finished with an inexpensive piece from a local home improvement store.
Once the liquid has been removed, you can clean the carpet with a solution of warm water and a small amount of detergent. Apply this with a sponge and repeat the blotting action to make sure you get all of the liquid up from the carpet. It might also be a good idea to treat the area with a commercial pet deodorizer when you have finished the process as well to ensure there are no lingering odors.