The Vine: April 15, 2011
My parents are having trouble cleaning their favorite chair. The small dog of the house long ago staked out the top of the headrest (by my dad’s head) as his place of rest, and now the chair just smells.
They’ve used all kinds of cleaners and baking soda/vinegar-type remedies, but nothing works. I don’t know specifically each product they’ve used, though.
I’ve spent a long time reading old Vines for entertainment and I recall reading about various products that you and the Nation have used as cleaners for the various smells and stains that go along with pets. I never bothered to remember these things as I don’t have a pet, but now I find it would be useful to know! The only one I could find in reading through the archives is Nature’s Miracle, but I know there are more y’all have mentioned. (Plus, Nature’s Miracle, is it a cleaner or a gel thingy you open and place by the offending smell?)
Could you and/or the readership refresh my memory so I could send some suggestions my parents’ way?
Katie
Dear Katie,
I’ll let the readers step in in a moment, but if the headrest is detachable, you could huck it in the dryer for 30 minutes on medium and see if that does the trick.
I’d also suggest, once you’ve found a solution for zapping the dog smell, deploying preventive measures from now on — i.e., a towel, a soft piece of upholstery that complements the chair, or something along those lines, laid where the dog usually naps and laundered once a week.
Readers?
Tags: Ask The Readers cats retail
I recommend Zero Odor (http://www.zeroodor.com/). This was recommended to me by the woman who ran the cat rescue organization from which I got my cat (after my cat peed in my bed, so I was seriously concerned about pet odors! And cat urine is nearly impossible to get out.) She said that Nature’s Miracle wasn’t really all that great, and she often had upwards of 15 cats in her house (before they got transferred to the shelter), so I trusted she knew her stuff re: odors.
It has definitely worked for me. It’s a spray, so for things I could throw in the wash I’d spray and let it sit before washing, but for things like, for example, chairs, which can’t be thrown in the wash, you can just spray and let it sit. It doesn’t have a smell at all (not like Febreze).
I have had very good luck with Zorbx removing everything from cat pee to cigarette smells.
I give Nature’s Miracle (a spray) my highest endorsement: it got the smell out of my post-Katrina refrigerator.
Kids n pets (http://www.kidsnpetsbrand.com/)has worked for us but we’ve only used it for cat and kid “accidents”
Rent a carpet/upholstery steam cleaner. That’s really the only way to get deep into upholstery. It’s not terribly expensive, especially if you go ahead and clean your carpets and other furniture while you’re at it. We used one to clean cat pee out of an upholstered chair. We had to go over it 2 or 3 times, but it worked, and the smell has not re-emerged (it’s been over a year). Didn’t hurt the upholstery, though of course you’d want to do a test spot on the back.
I use Nature’s Miracle myself (I have a super tall litterbox and the cat STILL goes over the sides, slight aiming problem that one.) Nature’s Miracle is a liquid, and for the carpet I just clean the area with regular soap and water, and then DROWN it with N.M. It smells very nice, but not sickeningly strong. And honestly if it works for cat pee it’ll probably work on just about anything.
I thoroughly endorse Nature’s Miracle. One of my cats went through a phase where he thought it would be okay to pee on the couch and the spray got the smell out really well. I don’t know how it would work on dog smell, but if it can get rid of cat urine smell then I think it can handle anything.
Some folks swear by 1/3 vodka, 2/3 water (or some ratio like that) and it clears up smells (and doesn’t leave a vodka after-smell).
Try Clear the Air Odor Eliminator: http://tinyurl.com/44kwlt4
These are odorless granules that you sprinkle on the offending location. Available at PETCO. I have the most sensitive nose of anyone I know, and it really works.
@Cij, I JUST read that on RealSimple.com last night. Apparently it’s really good for misting on musty-smelling vintage clothes.
Nature’s Miracle for sure. It’s a liquid that you can get in a spray or a big bottle. Kind of expensive, but you just SOAK the chair in it. Is it just a stinky dog smell or a pee smell? I’ve also used this stuff http://www.scoe10x.com/scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=17 which works really well, but is EXPENSIVE and smells bad itself until it dries. But you can buy an injector bottle from them to use to inject the mix way down inside the carpet or upholstery.
I recommend an upholstery cleaner, with Nature’s Miracle as your liquid in the machine. I had dogs that were in a round-robin peeing contest, and the steam cleaner/Nature’s Miracle combo cut that off right quick.
If it were anyplace else but beside Pa’s head, I would recommend Simple Green. It gets rid of various forms of stank but it itself has a pretty strong scent (it fades, but for awhile… whoa). The vodka thing is useful if it doesn’t stain or otherwise watermark the fabric.
I also LOVE Natures Miracles. I have 2 cats, and it gets cat vomit out of my carpets. I haven’t had to try with cat pee (thankfully) but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it – and its safe for your pets too.
The vodka-and-water is an old standby in the theatre. There’s a spray bottle full of it in almost every wardrobe department to get the smell out of costume pieces that can’t be regularly laundered. Basically, it kills the bacteria that cause the smell. So whether it works for the dog smell or not might depend on what’s causing the odour.
Sort of off topic: this reminds me of my cat’s favorite chair. It’s an old thing I got at a thrift store over ten years ago. It’s striped velvet (velour?) and it’s the only chair in the house she was allowed to scratch on. I always told myself I’d get it reupholstered if/when my cat passsed away but that was always such a far away thought. Unfortunately, after 16 years together I had to put her down a month ago (she was diagnosed with tumors and her health was rapidly declining). I look at her chair and think, “I guess I could recover it now” but I kind of like looking at the frayed material because it reminds me of her. Aaaaand that concludes today’s Tomato Nation Therapy Session. ;)
Any enzymatic pet cleaner will do the trick if you use it correctly.
First, spray the area well, Let it sit for five minutes and blot the (sm)hell out of it with paper towels (or rags, if you think laundering them is more environmentally friendly.)
Spray it again, blot the excess again, and then – this is the important part – put another layer of paper towels and rags or whatever there, and weight it down with something heavy and let it sit for 6-12 hours.
It’s the last bit that seems to really get the stank out for me.
I’m a Crazy Cat Lady with five cats, two of whom have “issues” with incontinence. My house does not smell of cat pee or anything else.
I like Nature’s Miracle, but I really prefer PetZyme. I have 2 dogs and a cat, and it’s cleaned up accidents and vomit from all three very well, and works well as a fabric spray for eliminating odors~I use it like Febreze on my couches and rugs. If you can find it, I’d recommend petzyme over Nature’s Miracle, but petzyme is getting harder to find since Petsmart stopped carrying it.
I think the issue here is what is causing the smell? Is it from stepping in crap (literally) in the yard and bringing that in? Is it that the dog is not being bathed regularly and this is simply the smell of natural oils and dirt? If it’s the former, go the enzymatic route. If the latter, that is certainly more of a problem – like a dirty collar on a white shirt.
After the headrest is cleaned, it’s definitely antimaccassar time. I would not recommend lace, such as those used by my grandmother, but a small quilt or throw that is folded and drapes down the back of the chair; decorative yet utilitarian and easy to toss in the wash every week.
My sister volunteers for a local rescue agency and usually has 3 or more (not housebroken) puppies running around her house in addition to her own 2 dogs and 3 cats. She swears by Nature’s Miracle. I have to say that her house doesn’t reek of cat, dog or puppy (and I don’t have any pets so I would notice if it did) so I guess that speaks well for the product.
I’ve had good luck with Nature’s Miracle for cat pee where the peed-on item is something that can go in the wash, preferably with even a small amount of bleach, but it sounds like that’s not quite your issue here. Steam cleaning with Nature’s Miracle or something similar is, I bet, going to be the right answer for this problem. I think you can get a hand-held upholstery steam cleaner for not terribly expensive (I haven’t looked into this myself, but I used to live with a girl who had one and she said it was pretty inexpensive) and it does amazing things for your furniture, both appearance and smell-wise. My mom has an elderly cat who’s a norotious furniture-pee-er and another that’s an indiscriminate and voluminous puker, and she swears by the two-stage Woolite cleaners, the kind that are two tanks of magic that mix together in the spraygun part of the assembly. She says they work great on carpet and on the upholstery, so that might work for you if you don’t want to go the steam-cleaning route.
Does anyone have any advice for an area of floor with persistent pee-smell? An ex-roommate had a cat who decided peeing on the floor was his new job(I moved out after about a year of dealing with it.) But now I am moving back to the same townhouse(new job/boy situation makes the complex a perfect location, this particular townhouse was what they had available, etc.) and the smell is still there – three YEARS later.
I’ve gotten them to strip out the carpet and pad, primer the subfloor, and put in clean carpet and pad, which will hopefully work- but I’m insanely paranoid that it’ll come back even after that. She used Nature’s Miracle and a carpet scrubber repeatedly, but…three years later, it still smells(although not enough for me to have noticed during the tour even though I was paying attention to whether or not it was still a problem.)
At this point I’m a little scared that “Nuke it from orbit” is the best plan and I’d like to have a few options for further pee-combatting if it ends up being needed.