In the United States we love our pets, but as we all know they occasionally have accidents.
Unfortunately these "accidents" can cause more damage then many pet owners know.
Where pet urine exists so does bacteria, odors, and often times very difficult stains.
Dog and Cat Urine on carpeting is a breeding ground for bacteria and odors.
Left untreated these stains can actually deteriorate the carpet fibers causing permanent damage.
Pet urine odors and stains can be surprisingly complex and can be difficult to remove from carpet & other fabrics.
Many factors come into play when trying to remove pee stains, such as the size and location of the spot, carpet fabric type, length of time the stain was allowed to set, age of the pet, breed, medications that the animal is on, even the pets diet can effect the removal.
Can I Just Do a Light Topical Treatment to Remove the Urine Odor! Even a small amount of cat or dog urine can cause a lot of damage by quickly soaking into the backing of the carpet, padding, and even the sub floor where it is even more difficult to remove...
Think of an Iceberg! Surface treatments may temporarily mask the odor, but the urine remains in the carpet and will eventually creep back to the surface.
What's in Urine That Causes the Difficult Stain? Urine is made up of several things like urea, creatine, cholesterol (lipids), and uric acid, which are waste products of our metabolism.
It is another bi product that gives urine its yellow color call urochrome.
Health, age, diet, gender, breed, and many other factors all change the make up of the animals urine.
Urine leaves the body on the acid side of the pH scale, but immediately begins to be broken down into ammonia and carbon dioxide.
Permanent damage and color loss is often a result of the highly alkaline ammonia.
So when urine is left in the carpet for a longer period of time, what looks like a yellow spot might actually be permanent color loss.
Many people ask...
Why is animal urine so hard to remove from carpets? The warm acid environment created when the urine leaves the body is the perfect breeding ground for bacteria, which begin to flourish almost immediately.
As the urine exits it comes in contact with bacteria while passing the urethra, animal's skin, and finally microorganisms in the carpet.
Part of what we smell is the bacteria giving off gasses.
As the urine decomposes it changes in pH from an acid to an alkali.
Alkaline salt crystals from when the acidic urine reacts with the ammonia being created.
Why Can I See Urine / Pee on Some Days and Not others? After the urine has dried on the carpet the hygroscopic salt crystals that formed during the pH change draw moisture from the air, remaining slightly moist and chemically active all the time.
As long as the bacteria remains active it will continue to off gas.
When the urine salts are re-wet sometimes with more urine, an attempted cleaning, or even on humid days the urine salts will give off more gasses.
What all of this tells us is that the #1 most important thing to remember about removing pet urine from carpets is...
Remove as much as possible as quickly as possible!