I want to keep my cats but sell my house. How?

December 23, 2008 8:02 PM

Help me keep my cats and still maintain my sanity in my house.

I really, really love my three cats. They are all from the same litter; I have had them since they were teeeeeny tiny. The only problem with my three cats, bless their hearts, is they pee everywhere.

I have ruled out UTIs. I have done everything I can think of to correct this behavior - squeaky clean litterboxes, Cat Attract litter, Feliway, n+1 boxes in the house, etc. Things are improving - in fact they have improved much since I finally "got serious" about trying to correct the problem.. But the time is coming for me to sell my home. The problem is, the carpet is saturated with cat pee, probably same for the molding and maybe some drywall.

Now i've tried some enzyme cleaners - Nature's Miracle, primarily - and i'll be moving to Anti Icky-Poo ASAP, and leave it on the carpet for a period of several days for my next step in breaking the habit. But my cats have had this habit for a long time. Like a couple of years long time, and they did it even when we briefly moved to a new house.

So now i'm looking ahead, towards making some renovations on the house, with a special eye towards protecting the value of the flooring and molding. What this means to me is that if I replace the carpet, I can't replace it with carpet because I fear the cats will just go to pee on it, especially since it would be a significant environment change.

I could foresee doing hardwoods or tile or any number of other options once I scrub the crap out of the concrete (I live on a slab). What option is the best option for this kind of situation - nonporous tile? Will that hurt the value of the house since putting down tile is so unusual? Do I have to redo significant portions of the drywall, or will changing the stinky cat-pee carpets break the habit or at least bring it farther under control?

Getting rid of the cats is not an option (my sanity would suffer and the feelings of abandonment would crush me). But I need to sell this house sometime in the next six months and I need the solution that will enable me to bridge having cats but not re-investing twice. So, to summarize, specific questions:

1) Is tile the best option for my situation?
2) Has installing tile in main living spaces hurt the value of your house?
3) Do I need to replace drywall? (I already plan on replacing molding).
4) Do I need to jackhammer the concrete first since it cannot be sealed? Will the smell eventually come out, given enough soaking/scrubbing with an enzyme cleaner?
5) Is there anything that worked for you in terms of controlling the cat behavior in a similar situation? E.g. crate training?

Thanks for any help you can offer (and my sanity thanks you in advance)

posted by arimathea to Pets & Animals (10 answers total)

I know what you mean about the cats. We have the Ragdoll parents and two sets of siblings plus a rescued feral cat. Our house reeks on a good day and waters your eyes on a bad one. I might recomend peel and stick vinyl floor tiles. Cleanable and removeable come moving/selling time. There are various ways to seal the tiles as far as keeping any pee off the original floor under the tiles. Luckily for us, our floor is terrazzo......
posted by Redhush at 8:30 PM on December 23, 2008

My mom had the same problem with the pee-soaked carpeting... she used to have 13 cats. I ripped up the carpet and mopped the subfloor repeatedly with a strong bleach solution. I also scrubbed the drywall. it seemed to take care of it; I've gotten compliments since on how nice the house smells.

I work for an all-natural cleaning service that cleans for a house where the owners have 17 cats. We've taken the smell in the house from ghastly to barely detectable by using vinegar to soak up the smell and essential oils to mask/replace it. For example... there was a spot of hardwood in one bathroom that reeked to holy hell because a cat had peed there repeatedly for ages. Every cleaning, first thing, I'd apply some undiluted sweet orange essential oil to the spot, rub it in with a rag, and let it stand while I cleaned the other parts of the house, then mop it up. Now that spot just makes the bathroom smell like oranges.

My dad installed tile in a lot of his house simply because it was the cheapest option. It looks nice and didn't seem to hurt the resale value at all.
posted by Gianna at 9:25 PM on December 23, 2008

1) I'm not sure what kind of tile you mean, but based on what I see in my area I find the vinyl looks bad and the stone/ceramic type is very cold, though seemingly popular, so I would give those a miss. I would go with laminate wood flooring. It's cheap these days and has a resin like coating that seems to protect it well. My cat, who was very ill, didn't manage to damage it with her many many body fluid accidents over two years.

4) In another house, I managed to get the stink of the previous tenant's pets out of bare wood floors previously by bleaching. I imagine concrete's the same, and once you have new flooring any residual smell is history.

5) I had another cat (male) who would pee on things when upset about something or when something smelled foul. My solution was to not leave foul smelling things around (gross dirty packpack, someone's used undies or other smelly laundry on the floor, et cetera.)
posted by Listener at 10:06 PM on December 23, 2008

I know there are great cleaners for concrete and sealers to seal in the stink (Home Depot, etc) as well as all of the other materials issues you're asking about. But I'll leave that to the remodeler and professional cleaners to tell you.

Our home is no longer known by (the smell of) the cats we keep. Where cats smell pee (carpets, baseboards,--which of course THEY'VE stunk up!!) they assume is the primo place to pee. However if they get accustomed to a box and there's no other option...and you are consistent at making it so, they'll not want to go anywhere else. Or that's been our experience...The only exception has been a very old or sick kitty who needs to be put to sleep...but it sounds like you've eliminated that as a possibility already. I know you were primarily asking for info on fixing the damage...but having paid several thousand dollars to have sub-flooring and even whatever's under that (sub-sub-flooring???) replaced because an ill kitty damaged it, and all of the non-sick kitties followed pee-suit, if you will, I just have to share our hard-won knowledge with you.

Herewith...A suggestion for re-potty-training the cats. The myriad cats we've had over a long period (30-plus years, and up to 5 at a time) have peed all over our home in many and sundry situations; after having children or new animals, and definitely every time we move...as well as when we have new furniture...and sometimes when we sneeze or look at them sideways...so... Here's what we've done. (We've used this method for the last 9 years, in 3 homes, and with an assortment of cats...and it's been a nearly perfect solution after 20-plus years of literally hit or miss--cat-peeing habits.)

We shut them in a single area that is relatively un-damageable...I like a garage--- for a several days at least. Food there, two litter-boxes (always two or more, never one), water there, nice soft sleeping areas...old blankets in boxes, or whatever. They'll claw at the door so you might want to tack/tape cardboard to it for the time they are limited to that area alone. After several days to a week, one comes in at a time. i.e. Cat A, comes in for a few hours, then out all night, back in for awhile, then out all night w/ the others. If Cat A is not peeing indoors i.e. waiting until you put it in the garage, or letting you know when it needs to go out for several days in a row, bring in Cat B, same way, and a few days later, Cat C...giving each a few hours for a few days so you can see if each is adjusting.

Eventually, the garage is where the food, and kitty boxes stay and the kitties have the run of the house again. You'll have to leave the garage door slightly ajar at first, so they can go out there as needed to eat, pee, poo, etc. Once they are reliably using the garage cat boxes, we've found we can close the door to the garage for hours at a time and the kitties will come to us and lead us to the door if we forget to reopen it.
The next hurdle will be if you end up w/ one or two that are not reliably using the kitty boxes in the garage. You'll have to quarantine that kitty(s) in another room with its own box until it is reliably using a box, (an extra bathroom works perfectly, or the laundry room) then it can try coming out of stir again.
Many great outcomes. NO peeing indoors. No one knows we have cats because of a smell in our home, (not even we) but only because of the sheer charm and pure snootieness of our kitties... Negatives; it costs a bit more to heat in the coldest months...but still a lot cheaper and pleasanter than replacing carpets, baseboards, drywall...etc.
And of course you get to have your kitties and enjoy them, too!! Sorry this is so long...and I hope it's at least useful...otherwise, I wasted some perfectly usable...webspace??
posted by mumstheword at 10:07 PM on December 23, 2008 [1 favorite]

Putting down tile is unusual? In my part of the country (Las Vegas), ceramic tile floors are very common and even bragged about in housing ads. It's much more durable and easier to clean compared to most floor surfaces.
posted by Jacqueline at 1:19 AM on December 24, 2008

The main question is do they pee on hard surfaces or just soft, like carpet? If only soft I would put down some type of laminate wood. My cats pee on soft stuff but have only done so on wood when very very cranky (I think!).

If you're really serious about selling the house, any way you can confine the cats in a room with tile until it's off your hands?
posted by miss tea at 4:58 AM on December 24, 2008

Pull up all your carpet, clean the concrete with the bleach solution noted above. Then stain the concrete with regular old wood stain and seal with polyurethane. Throw down some area rugs. This is what we did with our floors just as an experiment before spending tons on money on hardwood, and it looks great. We get compliments all the time. And just did the same in our newly redecorated dining room. Makes the concrete look like marble. Easy to clean with a mop. Email me if you want pictures and specifics from Mr. Raisingsand.

I don't have any experience with the cat thing, though. We're dog people.
posted by raisingsand at 5:17 AM on December 24, 2008

I think the appeal of tiled floors largely depends on the climate. I know that in some areas with cold winters, tiles are seen as a detriment. For instance, a lot of older houses in downtown Toronto have entirely tiled floors (even in the living room & bedrooms), often installed in the 1970s by Mediterranean owners. But in the past few years, as those houses come up for resale, the tiles are almost always being replaced by hardwood prior to selling. Often even the kitchen and bathroom floors will be redone in hardwood, which just seems impractical to me! But it does suggest that cold-climate buyers- at least in this city- may see tiled floors as undesirable. Whereas in hotter climates, as mentioned above, cool & easy-to-clean tiled floors could be seen as a major plus.

You might want to browse real estate listings in your area, and visit a few nearby open-houses, so you can see for yourself what's trendy near you. Look at what kind of floors the real estate agents are boasting about, and how people are reacting to different flooring options before you make a decision.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 1:07 PM on December 24, 2008

Apple cider vinegar has worked very very well for me in the past for removing cat urine smell.
posted by kdar at 8:11 AM on December 25, 2008

I have anywhere between eight and fourteen cats, depending. This is what has worked for me, YMMV.

Undiluted Simply Green. You can buy the concentrated form, and the instructions SAY to dilute it, but I didn't bother. I'm not sure what it will do to fabric (but if you're set on replacing the carpet, anyway, it shouldn't matter), but I used it on old, untreated wood. I saturated the wood, made sure all breathing animals were out of the room, put a fan on it, and let it dry. The only scent left in the cabinets is a vague pine-y smell. I also used a sealant paint, and I believe you can get sealant for concrete/subfloor (there has to be something you can paint where the new flooring is going, right?)

What I've noticed is that my cats generally only pee where they can smell odor from previous cat pee. So if you seal the cement/subfloor, and then have fresh padding/carpet put in, they may not have a motivation to mark the territory. Just make sure that you have the time to monitor the cats - it's a lot easier to clean up fresh messes than messes that have soaked in.

As far as the originating problem, you've ruled out health issues. So, behavior modification. Clean/enough litter boxes is the absolute first and best thing to try. The next steps can differ. I've heard crate training will work, but I personally have never tried it. Feliway didn't seem to work for my cats, but I've heard other people who rave about it. As a last-straw step, they are prescribing Prozac for cats, if the peeing is due to nervous/territorial issues.

Good luck!
posted by waxlight at 2:36 PM on December 26, 2008