How to Remove Cat Urine Odor from Wooden Floors
Cat urine has an unmistakable, ammonia-like pungent smell that permeates the room and can get worse if the urine is allowed to soak into wood floors. Until the cat urine odor is addressed, it will announce itself every time you enter the house. Here’s how to remove cat urine odor. If you are going to stage your home, make sure to pay special attention to any stains that might be caused by the cat urine.
Cleaning tips for impermeable wood surfaces:
- Impermeable, well-sealed wood surfaces do not allow liquids to pass below the top coating
- Clean the problem area first with water and a sponge to remove the majority of the urine spot.
- Dispose of the sponge used previously and thoroughly clean out the bucket. Doing this will ensure the area does not get re-contaminated during the rest of the cleaning process.
- Spray the odor-removing product directly on the problem area.
Depending on the specific product, you may need to leave it soaking on the urine area for a short period.- Wipe up the urine with a new sponge or with a clean rag.
- Lightly rinse off the area with clean water.
- Let the area completely dry out.
Cleaning tips for permeable surfaces:
- Permeable wood surfaces have open pores and can allow cat urine to permeate into the wood surface.
- If your wood floor has gapped seams or a poor finish that allows liquids to soak in, you may have to sand away the cat urine
- This is suitable for solid hardwood floors where you can deeply sand floor using a drum sander and a disc sander.
- For engineered wood floors, only light sanding with a disk sander is possible since the top wood veneer is too thin to allow for deep sanding.
- For sanding close to baseboards and trim, use an edge sander or you may choose a random-orbiting sander for your home instead.
- Thoroughly clean the floor with a broom, followed up by two damp mops, with the mop thoroughly pressed out so that it feels almost dry to the touch.
- Finally, coat the floor with a water-based urethane finish.
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