Removing Dog Urine Odor From Wood Floors. Ideas?
There is a strong knock you down smell of dog urine and feces in the sunroom of the house I'm rehabbing. Actually, since I have no sense of smell, I never smelled it, but others who've been there can attest to it. How to get rid of it? I read on the internet that ammonia or bleach works, kilz works, etc. etc. What really works? The floor is made up of wood planks.
Check out the Aranizer. It does wonders. Stick it in the room. Turn it on high and leave it there for a week.
It is the equivilant of putting the floor "outdoors" for three years.
http://www.thecreativeinvestor.com/Product54.html
There's some stuff I've used. I'm not sure the exact name, but if there's a janitorial supply place near you, they'll know what I'm talking about. It's got some sort of "live enzyme" in it. You put it on thick and let it dry and then clean the floor real good. Then, put another coat of polyeurethane on the floor (The janitorial supply place should be able to help you with that too.) That'll seal it in.
That's only the way I've done it. It's worked very effectively. I've even shampooed carpet with that enzyme and it's removed the smell permanently.
Hope this helps.
Ronnie
[addsig]
I don't know where to find it, but "Odor Xit" is supposed to be really good.
The planking has me slightly baffled as I wonder what lies beneath. Is it on concrete slab or just subfloor of ply or straight onto joists? Each has a different solution.
To hold a client, I had to do an unlawful detainer and evict a holdover after a foreclosure action.
The person in residence was an elderly gentlemen who had abandoned soap and water many years ago. He lived in squalid splendor and finaly after finding him an even more attractive slum into which he moved, I was faced with what he had left behind.
Neither he or his dog were housebroken and no wonder for he had removed the toilet from its little attachment fitting which rested upon the 4 inch waste line. To properly position yourself over the remaining orfice required the skill of an ex operator of a Norton Bomb Sight, and believe me he failed very short on that qualification.
My solution was complete removal of everything, right down to the concrete floor. This I cleaned several times with a mix of amonia and bleach. Leaving all the doors and windows wide open in the hope that a passing breeze would carry away some of the resident pungent smells.
I did get one rather interesting comment from the lady tenant next door who hailed from Uzbekestan. She wanted to know what was for dinner, as she could not quit identify the ingrediants. I smirked a lot and kept on cleaning.
I then Polyurthaned the slab with two coats and let it set up. I recarpeted and bought a lovely new toilet in an interesting shade of yellow.would hid the near misses. . Painted the place and sold it the following week. I think the nice Russian who bought it had designes on the lady from Uzbekestan. Suddenly all the cats disapeared and he gained weight!
Whatever, Do hope this helps. Lucius
I bought a house a few years ago that was used to raise rotweillers. The place was SOOOO bad that in order to remove the carpet, I had to cut it into small pieces because it was so heavy with urine and feces. Needless to say, the wood beneath was absolutley horrible smelling. After many attempts at cleaners, I broke down and bought an ionizer.
These machines have taken a bad rap lately for being unhealthy to be around, but in one week, the place was inhabitable. In two weeks it smelled fresh. The machine cost me about $700, if I recall, but I have used it many times since then - all with success.
Good Luck.
Gregg
[addsig]
put several dishes of brown cider vinegar in the room change every three days till odor is www.gone.Got this info from a fireman,it works great!
I've only had this problem (mercifully) a couple of times.
My first solution was to call my dear friend Lufos. Unfortunately, I think he was fighting a turf war.
The next solution is to strip the area (carpet/pad) down to the wood. If it's plywood/particle board subflooring, the heavily stained areas are replaced.
Apply 2-3 washes of a concentrated solution of ammonia water and one-two applications of a polyurethane sealer.
Then put an ad in the paper, "Pets O.K."
Lufos,
Ammonia and Bleach! Please say it isn't so!
Please see the following:
The Dangers of Mixing Bleach and Ammonia
Often, one looks at a bottle of bleach and wonders, 'Why shouldn't this be mixed with ammonia?' If you know how dangerous chlorine gas is to humans (it was used as a chemical weapon during World War I and later by Nazi Germany in World War II), this will be very apparent. This entry will tell of a few reactions that can occur when bleach and ammonia are mixed in various proportions - the release of chlorine gas is just one of these. In the following sections, the header will be the name of the most dangerous compound produced in the reaction shown. Please, do not try any of this at home.
Chlorine Gas (Cl2)
That warning is there to protect you. Household bleach has a chemical formula of NaOCl - that is, one atom each of sodium, oxygen, and chlorine. Its chemical name, for the curious, is sodium hypochlorite. Ammonia has a chemical formula of NH3, that is, one atom of nitrogen and three atoms of hydrogen. When these two compounds are combined, the following reaction takes place:
2(parts)NaOCl + 2NH3 --> 2NaONH3 + Cl2.
Do you see that Cl2 on the right hand side there? This means one part chlorine gas, made up of diatomic (two atom) molecules. It also means that the chlorine gas has been liberated from the bleach, and is quite capable of causing you harm when inhaled!
The Pain! The Pain!
To understand the effects chlorine gas has on the body, we first need to understand the chemical properties of chlorine, particularly its valence, or number of chemical bonds chlorine can form. Chlorine is in the seventh of the traditional groups of elements, one before the group of inert gases, which, as their name suggests, are almost completely unreactive. Chlorine has seven electrons in its outer electron shell.
The Octet Rule states that all elements try to fill in their outer electron shell until they have eight electrons. When a chemical has eight electrons in its outer shell, it is then stable. Being so close to having 8 electrons in its outer shell, chlorine is quite desperate to get that one last electron - and will literally rip other atoms apart to do so. This is what happens to your respiratory system when you inhale chlorine gas. The gas tears into your nasal passages, trachea, and lungs by causing massive cellular damage. Obviously, chlorine gas causes a very painful death.
Nitrogen Trichloride (NCl3)
Another potential reaction, which occurs when a greater amount of bleach is added than ammonia, is this:
3NaOCl + NH3 --> 3NaOH + NCl3
That's sodium hydroxide and nitrogen trichloride. Nitrogen trichloride is a very toxic chemical to humans, and even if you did get close enough to ingest it, it would probably explode in your face first, as it is also a very volatile explosive. There is little necessity in explaining why that is bad.
Hydrazine (N2H4)
Still another reaction - in three parts this time - can occur, producing hydrazine (N2H4, a component of rocket fuel) if you have more ammonia than bleach:
NH3 + NaOCl --> NaOH + NH2Cl.
These two products then react with ammonia as follows:
NH3 + NH2Cl + NaOH -->N2H4 + NaCl + H2O.
One last reaction occurs to stabilise the reagents:
2NH2Cl + N2H4 --> 2 NH4Cl + N2.
This last equation is of particular interest because of the amount of heat it produces. The heat is so great that it usually leads to an explosion.
Danger!
As mentioned before, this article mentions some very dangerous chemicals. One should not ever, ever attempt to create the chemicals described above as it could result in injury or even death
Back in my younger dumber days when I was a bus boy in a restaurant, there were always warnings posted and knowledge passed on to never mix amonia and bleach.
So of course eveyonce in awhile when someone was moping the floor with a lot of bleach, someone would pour some amonia on it just to see the chemical reaction.
You can actually see the gas form and come up off the floor, it looks like smoke.
Don't mix amonia and bleach, I was also under the impression that it is also explosive.
Cmiller2:
Thanks for the information. This helps explain many of Lufos' idiosyncrasies.