What's that smell?!?

Question

How easy is it to get rid of a bad stink in a house? What if it isn't as easy as replacing the carpets?

A house I am thinking about buying has a bad stink that smells like cat urine. The previous owner disclosed that dogs and cats were living with her, but the carpet is only a year old and looks and feels new.

I have heard it is very easy to get rid of a smell, but others say it can be very difficult. What exactly will I be looking at if it's not just replacing the carpet and airing out the house?

What will the costs look like for this? Depending on the cost, this may make or break the deal.

Thanks everyone!

Marc Winter · Answer

One of our best deals was a house that made you gag and your eyes water when you got within 5 feet of the front door.  Female cat pee (yes, there is a difference) was absolutely overpowering.

We removed all carpet, and used an organic/enzyme product like @Richard Fields suggested, then after it dried, we used 2 coats of oil based Kilz primer/sealer on the subfloor.  That did the trick.  NOTE:  that subfloor was over an unfinished basement--we also used Kilz on the underside of the subfloor.

After that, I always thought that cat pee smelled like money!

Andrew Faukner · Answer

If it still stinks after removing the carpet and pad, and if it has a subfloor, before you start replacing the subfloor you might try painting it with Kilz paint/primer to see if that will get rid of the smell. Just another option. Good luck!

Steve Vaughan · Answer

If you don't mind a little horror,  use a black light.

Do it at night with no lights on.  Urine will show neon green.  The splatter up the walls can be future nightmare-worthy, but you'll know where to focus.

Richard Fields · Answer

I just went through this. I had good luck with 2 different products. Furry freshness worked good for the walls and baseboard upstairs. The urine was embedded in the concrete basement floor. I used an enzyme cleaner down there called Mister Icky Poo

Toby Thompson · Answer

@Daniel Claroni

Please be careful if you are going the ozone route- that can kill anything living as well as ruin rubber seals. Also, it should only be used for SHORT time periods.

As previously mentioned shellac works wonders but does smell worse than oil based primer , but also does s better job. Zinsser BIN is ready available and cost effective.

The only truly effective way to remove an odor is to remove the source, be it pad, drywall, or subfloor. Anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves. That being said, depending on odor there are other strategies to lock it in or neutralize it depending on the type of odor (acid/protein/uric/etc.).

I would remove carpet/pad, shellac subfloor, then go from there as required. If you give me specific cause and source of odor I can give specific remediation plan.

Jim Dangcil · Answer

@Daniel Claroni

Renting or purchasing a commercial ozone machine is your best bet for addressing the smell.

Jill F. · Answer

We had one where the smell was coming out of a drain that was not clogged. We ended up getting the main snaked and that finally got rid of the smell.

Belinda Hunt · Answer

We had some sort of unidentified rotten smell in a kitchen once. We had scrubbed floors, checked under house etc. Just couldn't identify source. I bought a cheap ozone machine off amazon. Less than 100 bucks. I ran it for three days straight.  When the contractor came back on Monday to turn off he was shocked. The house smelled amazingly fresh. The smell never came back. Hotels use them to remove cigarette smell. I have personally used them to reduce musty smell in closed off rooms. Still need other products for urine but man for most other smells. Works great.

Jim K. · Answer

Beg to differ, Marc. We live with three cats and I can't really tell the difference between neutered male cat pee and spayed female cat pee.  On the other hand, my brother-in-law has an intact male Savannah cat, a third-generation exotic hybrid of domestic cats and a wild cat called an ocelot.

Holy Mother of God, now that's a stink for the ages.

Jim K. · Answer

Daniel, what oftens happens is that they change the carpet and never change the padding underneath. It's a lot cheaper, and the smell of the new carpet is more than enough to mask cat urine stench underneath in the first month or so of the new carpet's life. I'd look into that first. Pull up a corner of that carpet in a closet and look at the condition of the padding. Get down near the stinkiest of places, get thatt carpet up off the tackless strips in a small area and see if the padding underneath reeks of cat urine.

What's that smell?!?

Most Popular Reply