Pet Urine – What To Do?
We love our pets most of the time, but when they have an accident in the carpet, it is a headache!
Pet urine stains are effected by many things, including food ingested, health of the animal, medications, etc. When urine comes out of the body it is very acidic but becomes alkaline as natural occurring bacteria digest the protein residue in it. The byproduct of this digestion process is ammonia which generally creates a strong odor. To remove urine we need to pre-treat it to make it water soluble in order to remove the urine residue. There are, of course, many consumer products available to treat pet urine accidents. Unfortunately, they generally just neutralize the urine with an enzyme chemical, but of course they do not eliminate the urine itself.
At Zerorez®, we offer three levels of pet urine removal, depending on the severity of the problem:
Basic Urine Pre-Treatment
We always recommend the Complete urine removal treatment, but there are times when the client prefers the basic service. We pre-treat the spot with a urine neutralizing product to make the urine water soluble, then flush out the urine and pre-treat solution utilizing a carpet wand and hot water extraction to remove as much of the urine as possible from the surface yarns of the carpet. This will NOT always eliminate the odor coming from the carpet pad underneath the carpet, and in fact may reactivate the odor when the moisture comes in contact with the padding, but it will certainly yield a more sanitary surface. The Basic urine treatment is less expensive than the Complete treatment and may be appropriate if the main concern is a sanitary surface and odor is not a big problem.
Complete Carpet and Pad Treatment
This is especially worthwhile if there are small, saturated areas. We use a 12" x 12" tool called the "claw" which is placed directly on the soiled area. A neutralizing solution is poured on the soiled areas and then around the edges of the "claw", and the solution is then suctioned through the pad, carpet backing, yarn of the carpet, and up through the face of the "claw". This is followed by several rinsing cycles to extract all of the pre-treat solution from the pad, carpet backing, and surface yarns. This accomplishes a complete rinse of the carpet and is the most effective way to eliminate most of the urine residue, but it still may not extract all of the odor coming from the subflooring underneath the carpet. Of course this process is more extensive and is therefore priced a bit higher than the Basic service, but it is a very effective way to purge carpets and padding of pet urine.
Full Restoration
In cases where there are large areas saturated with urine, a more permanent solution may be required. In this case, we disengage the carpet, remove and replace the pad, treat and seal the sub floor, then treat and clean both sides of the carpet before re-installation. Sometimes even tack-less strips, drywall and baseboards will need to be treated. In some cases this may actually be more cost effective than the Complete Carpet and Pad Treatment because we are treating a large area at the same time rather than charging to sanitize multiple areas one at a time. By the way, none of these treatments guarantee to fix discoloration of the carpet fibers since they may have been damaged or altered by the urine. But the sooner you remove the urine soiling, the less likely that discoloration will become permanent.
While it would be wonderful if we could just spray on a magic solution to eliminate the problem when our four legged friends have an accident, that is just not possible at this time.
You can be sure, however, that Zerorez is ready to help you with the most appropriate solution when your pets surprise you with a little or big accident!
