Getting rid of the cat smells

[John Franczyk]

I've seen a number of posts on BR about houses that have bad aromas from trash, dead animals, etc., but I haven't found the best advice yet on getting rid of cat smells.  Here's the situation:

3 BR 1 bath SFR in western New York. The house was built in 1975. Stereotypical eccentric cat lady/widow has lived there for 20+ years. At least 4 cats have lived in the house with her at all times, and any number of feral cats come and go at will because she left lots of food out for them. I did not last more than a few minutes in the house before gagging from the aroma. My first thought is that the house needs to be gutted and rebuilt because that's the only way to get rid of the pervasive aroma of cat urine and ammonia. The kitchen and bath need to be updated, and gutting the rest of the house might be the best solution.

Are there any viable alternatives to a complete gut job here?

Thanks for any advice.

[Jim Hern]

Just handled two houses who had long term tenants with way too many cats (I inherited tenants from former owner). I’m extremely allergic, so it was a good test. At the start, I couldn’t be in either house for more than 15 minutes before I was sneezing like crazy.

I learned that cleaning the central AC (vents, ducts, coils) made a huge difference (and changing the filter a few times over a week). Next most important was a thorough clean of the tile floors, and all walls and doors about 2 feet up from the floor. Painting the walls, doors and baseboards (Kilz first followed by a good quality paint) ensured the odor was gone and no more sneezing for me.

In my two examples I didn’t have wood or carpet flooring....if I had, then probably I would’ve had to address that too.

Good luck!