Eliminating Dog Odor

[Mark McQuiston]

Hi all,

My previous tenants had a couple of dogs and long story short, when they moved out, the house had a potent dog smell. My initial thought was that the smell was rooted in the carpeting. I had the carpet professionally washed, and applied a couple of different odor eliminators over the last month. My new tenant is still complaining of the smell and I'm looking for feedback on how to approach this. It seems that my options are:

1. Try another type of cleaning product/technique

2. Replace the carpeting and pad

Thanks in advance for your time.

Best,

Mark

[Scott Rogers]

I own a carpet cleaning company. Odors are possible to remove but in many cases costs to do so exceeds replacement cost. 

Typically when you clean a carpet you are cleaning the surface of the fiber, and if the carpet is maintained properly this is sufficient, How ever a abused carpet will have soils, oils, urine ect. absorbed into the fiber, into the backing, into the padding and even into the subfloor.  Cleaning the surface of the fiber will make it look better and even make it smell better in most cases, but chemical application and subsurface extraction may be required to correct the issue. These can get very costly and if the carpet is over 5 years old or excessively worn or stained then replacement is a better option.

Ozone can be use to mitigate many of the odor issues quite successfully  foggers can also work. both of these have side effects and can be dangerous if precautions are not taken.  Do lots of research.

Even after carpet replacement odors can reappear in extreme situations if the subfloor and air system are not properly cleaned and sealed (wood subfloors). This is especially likely in high humid areas where phantom smells will appear on high humid days.