Eliminating dog pee smell

[Carol Venolia]

I'm guessing this topic has been discussed many times, but this is my first time with this problem, so I appreciate your forbearance.

I have a rental with wall-to-wall carpeting. I had a tenant with a dog. Apparently this dog really liked to pee on carpet. A reputable carpet cleaner told me today that there's nothing he can do to reduce the odor. He said my best bet is to remove all carpet and padding, then seal the subfloor with oil-based Kilz primer before installing any new floorcovering.

Does this sound like good advice? Have any other approaches that have worked for you?

Thank you for any insights you can offer!

[Joel Owens]

Yeah good luck with no pets. Will take out about 75% of the renter base. There will be those who tell you they have a pet and then those who do it anyway and you find out later!

You might get lucky with one unit with a non-pet but if you scale SFR ( I don't invest in the space ) you will run across pets.

For carpets you can get installed a breathable moisture barrier. These are supposed to help stop stains from reaching the sub floor. The cost of the carpet with breathable moisture barrier installed  might be cheaper to replace with all new anyways. A lot depends on how long you plan on holding the property for ownership.

You can remove carpet and padding and then get a black light kit from a place like Petsmart for about 30 bucks or so, maybe more. You then go around the room and make sure counter tops, baseboards, shelving, walls have not been sprayed on. There are solutions you can use to wipe down those areas to help eliminate the smell. Once you eliminate that then the floor needs to be worked on.

If the animal heavily peed in a corner or on walls you might have to take off the first 4 by 8 sheet section on the bottom and replace after letting air out and cleaning. Sometimes if the urine has really soaked into the sub floor sometimes the top layer is sanded down to remove before primer. If the problem has been ongoing for years you might have to pull up some sections of sub flooring and replace with new. Sub flooring itself is pretty cheap but the labor to pull up old and replaced can be intensive. 

I once had a property to sell in my real estate career starting out 14 years ago that had over 50 cats in it. Nice lady but had health issues and the cats were not spayed so populated quickly. Animal control had to come out and get the cats except for a few. So I have had experience with the urine thing and it is not fun.

No legal advice given.