$#$%*&^^))(

July 16, 2020 9:08 PM

We are longtime renters of a house we like very much. Our cat, in the last few years, has developed a peeing problem. Tonight we discovered he's been peeing for who knows how long onto a cat bed that was situated directly on the hardwood floor. And so now we have a big, fat, smelly problem.

The pee had soaked through the bed and saturated the old, not well coated hardwood floor beneath it with a dark stain. The floor reeks. We wiped it up, put down baking soda , then vinegar, wiped that up, and are currently soaking it overnight with hydrogen peroxide covered with plastic wrap and books to weight it down. Tomorrow I plan to get enzymatic cleaner. Spouse is asking someone who knows about sanding hardwood floors if they have any advice. However, everything I'm reading online suggests this is s waste of time and the floor and possibly subfloor will need to be replaced to truly get rid of the odor.

Soooo...now what do we do? We've always been model tenants and I'd like to keep it that way, especially since our landlord has been amazing. I imagine if we told them about the situation they'd want us to get rid of the cat, which is reasonable, but I would rather move and just give up security deposit. Except we're not really in an emotional and financial situation right now to move. And I cannot emphasize how much I fucking love this cat.

About the cat, he is perfectly healthy, has been checked out by the vet multiple times. We've tried multiple boxes, dr Elise's litter, prozac and feliway. He ruined a mattress and usually pees on piles of clothing left in the bathroom, for instance. But the faint odor of pee this time was so non specific that we didn't trace it to this spot till I was right next to it moving some stuff.

Complicating factors: this is RIGHT BY the front door, so if landlord has to come over for any sort of maintenance they will smell it. It has definitely soaked in and darkly saturated that spot. I would honestly consider hiring a company to come in and replace that area of flooring on the sly, except landlord's relative lives next door and is always home and sees and comments on everything we do.

One thought I had was to try to cover that area with plastic and something else whenever the landlord comes over, and then just offer to pay to have it replaced when we move out. Would there be anything we could use to keep the odor locked into the floor temporarily?

I'm incredibly distraught by the situation... is there anything else we should try?

posted by whistle pig to Home & Garden (28 answers total)

I've had this happen, and it will fade eventually. It sounds to me as if you're doing all the right things.

In the meantime: Don't tell the landlord if you don't want to move or give up your cat. I suspect you're right about his reaction. But equally, be prepared to give up the security deposit.

Also, citronella covers the smell extremely well. Not sure what reason you'd have for burning citronella candles indoors, but who knows...
posted by yellowcandy at 9:24 PM on July 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

I would fight the smell with an enzymatic cleaner like this one, and then I would cover the spot with furniture and a little rug or something.

I'd also expect to owe the landlord some flooring later, but that's not a big deal. It's just an expense to plan for when you leave.
posted by whisk(e)y neat at 9:37 PM on July 16, 2020 [14 favorites]

I had a section of hardwood floor rot from overzealous watering of a potted plant. At some point the planks will need to be replaced, but only in the affected area. A good carpenter can fix it up.

The question is if you want to live with it until you move out, then have your security go towards the repair, or just tell the landlord now and get it fixed so you can live stink free. As long as they knew about the cat, it would be quite a leap to insist on getting rid of the cat.

It is probably revenue neutral. It often happens that repair bills seem more inflated after move out, so there’s that. Cats get drawn to places they’ve peed before, so it may be a difficult habit to break as long as it stays that way.
posted by dum spiro spero at 10:08 PM on July 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Once cat urine soaks into wood, there’s nothing much you can do. Cat urine is magically powerful. The best thing would be to have a wood floor company come in and replace, restain, and recoat the floor in the spot that is urine damaged. A good floor person will be able to match your existing floor well. I’d just get it done now so that you can live without the smell and you won’t have to worry about your landlord finding it on their own.
posted by quince at 10:10 PM on July 16, 2020 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: I would gladly pay a company to do this now, except any sort of repair person who visits the house will be noticed and reported on by landlord's relative who lives next door to us. I'm guessing this isn't the sort of thing we could pass off as a friend visiting--right?
posted by whistle pig at 10:21 PM on July 16, 2020

After our last cat died I had a guy replace bits of my hardwood floor to remedy this. The cat will keep peeing in unexpected places and doing more damage, that's how they get when they get old.
posted by w0mbat at 10:30 PM on July 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

If the landlord is reasonable as you say, if you are replacing the affected flooring yourself, he should appreciate that even more as a responsible tenant and think that even if the cat does it again, you will step up.

I say tell him and preempt nosy relative neighbor. Tell him with short notice. "Later today I have a flooring guy coming to look at a spot that got soaked. I am planning on paying for the repair myself." He may ask to see it or have his own flooring guy. Accidents happen. You are willing to fix it. I would be happy as a landlord that you owned up.
posted by AugustWest at 10:56 PM on July 16, 2020 [20 favorites]

I would clean as best as possible, and maybe sand and reseal, but I wouldn't fess up now, because cats are arseholes, and there may be more than this one spot to fix by the time you leave or the cat dies.

If you can't get rid of the smell, then AugustWest's version might be the only way to go.
posted by kjs4 at 11:26 PM on July 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've found enzymatic cleaner really effective for getting rid of dog pee smell.

Also there's a range of different bleaches you can try, particularly if you are just accepting that the floor is stained. Worse that can happen if the floor gets stained with bleach instead of urine. I've found good old chlorine bleach generally will kill any bad smells. You might want to try oxygen bleach or oxalic acid first though, which are unlikely to damage the floor. Obviously do all of this one by one - you don't want to mix chemicals.

I wouldn't even think about the possibilities of moving out or getting a floor repair company until you've tried a bunch more things!

Good luck!
posted by mmmmmmm at 11:51 PM on July 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

So if your landlord allows cats, then they have to expect that this sort of thing will happen. Also, if it's to the point that you as cat-owners can smell it, then I guarantee you that anyone entering your place will be able to smell it immediately. Pet-owners become nose-blind to their pets' smells in their house -- and I say this as a pet-owner who absolutely never smelled my dogs in my house until I went on a two-week trip and came back and realized my house smelled like dogs. Most of my cat-owning friends and relatives don't think their house smells like litterbox, but the scent is really strong to me when I go to their houses.

I currently live in a house where the previous owner had a cat or two at a time over the 30 years before we bought the place over 10 years ago. There hasn't been a cat in this house in a decade, and every room where we haven't ripped up the flooring (there was no carpet when we bought the place) and baseboards and replaced it still smells like cat or cat pee when the weather is even remotely humid. This includes the tile-floor bathroom and the concrete-floor laundry room, where we're currently unable to replace the flooring. We've done everything humanly possible in those rooms, because it hasn't been in our budget to take them down to studs and rebuild like we've done in a few other rooms, and they still smell like cat pee, 10 years after there was a cat in the house
.
posted by erst at 11:53 PM on July 16, 2020 [7 favorites]

Can't you replace the area due to some other damage?
Like you accidentally dropped a battleaxe on it or something?
What's the heaviest and sharpest thing you have that can be "dropped" on that area?

At least it would remove the nosy neighbour problem.
You don't really need to damage it, just tell a little fib if asked.
posted by fullerine at 1:41 AM on July 17, 2020

Keep the spot wet with enzymatic cleaner over the next few days or weeks until you decide what to do - reapply it often enough that the spot is never dry. This will ensure it soaks into the wood as much as possible.

Don't be afraid to grab some medium coarse sandpaper and do some exploring to see how deep it actually goes. It may not be as bad as it looks. Don't excavate so that there is an obvious groove, but if it is dry now, scrape down a bit and see. Discolouration may actually only be the varnish.

I have had people in from outside and asked them about cat smells and had them not identify any cat smells, not able to guess where the cat smell is supposed to be and not able to smell it while the space was uncovered and their nose an inch from the floor, but I was able to keep the enzymatic cleaner going down daily during the time the cat was peeing. There was visible water damage to the floor boards and the bookcase beside it. If you do decide to disguise the spot during landlord inspections I suggest a large potted plant, or a little hall table suitable for receiving items just coming into the house with a small potted plant on it.

Try to encourage your cat to keep peeing in the favourite spot. I suggest a plastic boot tray under the same cat bed. You want him to stick to that spot faithfully and not to start peeing anywhere else. Keep in mind that the main reason they do that is pain. You'll want to launder the cat bed regularly of course, so getting one that feels identical to the cat and swapping them out during a daily launder might work.

Cat tax would be welcome. Just sayin'.
posted by Jane the Brown at 2:17 AM on July 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

- The damage is done. If you're willing to repair it, and if you can somehow prevent the cat from staining the hardwood in other places (your challenge), then you just have to be clear on whether the landlord is reasonable or not.

- Can you put down some rugs with plastic underneath to mask this stain and prevent further ones?
posted by amtho at 2:28 AM on July 17, 2020

My standard cat-smell neutraliser and cat-behaviour discourager for floors - eucalyptus oil. It soaks in - so humidity will release as much eucalyptus smell as cat pee smell. It will discolour the floor - but that has already happened.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 4:02 AM on July 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

I've found good old chlorine bleach generally will kill any bad smells.

"Good old chlorine" plus ammonia from rotting cat whizz is exactly that combination of chemicals that leads to the oft-repeated advice not to mix bleach with other chemicals. You really don't want to be breathing the reaction products.

If you're going to bleach, an oxygen bleach like hydrogen peroxide is way safer. But the enzymatic cleaners are safer still and more effective at binding up the odoriferous nitrogen-based chemicals that urine breaks down into.
posted by flabdablet at 5:13 AM on July 17, 2020 [4 favorites]

Agreed that soaking the area with enzymatic cleaner and continuing to reapply it over the course of several days will help quite a lot. We had to deal with a lot of random cat pee when my dad became ill and we discovered that he had not been cleaning the litter boxes for quite some time, and the cats had taken to finding some lovely areas to saturate with urine in the carpeted basement. Though it was carpet and not hardwood, we spent a few days diligently treating the areas with enzymatic cleaner and it drastically reduced the smell.

After you do that, I think AugustWest's suggestion is the next step.
posted by bedhead at 7:43 AM on July 17, 2020

We have had success drawing cat pee odors out of hardwood floors by covering the area in baking soda—not just a little dusting, but a heavy coating to a depth of 1/4" or so—and leaving it there for a day or so (you'll be able to see it draw stuff out of the floor), then vacuuming it off. Repeat until nothing comes up.

We have found this to be both cheaper (buy a big thing of baking soda from Costco or your favorite warehouse store, if you can) and more effective than the enzymatic cleaners, but YMMV of course.

To keep the cat from thinking that the baking soda is an invitation to pee there again, we generally cover the area with puppy pads (also quite cheap at Costco) or Chux. Some people recommend putting them down upside-down, so the plasticky layer is on top, because it's less appealing a surface for a cat to pee on than the absorbent side. Doesn't seem to matter to our cat but might be worth a try.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:19 AM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

I cannot say enough good things about FurryFreshness. It's expensive, but it is the only thing that I've found that helps with my incontinent cat. It does smell worse right after you apply it, but then it just disappears (smell *and* stains, if you're using it on carpet). I haven't needed to use it on hardwood, but there are directions on the bottle for hardwood/tile/concrete.
posted by candyland at 9:32 AM on July 17, 2020 [4 favorites]

If this spot of the floor is dunzo, then honestly just work on protecting the other parts of your floors - stay vigilant! - and budget for it to need to get replaced upon move-out. You're unlikely to get literally kicked out of your home for this, especially if you don't even report it to the landlord right now. Try out some of the products folks above have suggested, but don't get worked up about this. It is a spot that can be repaired, and if you're willing to live with it right now, then you're willing to live with it right now. Your home isn't uninhabitable.

If you ended up adopting another cat in January (from your previous post), it's possible that this issue is territorial/behavioral and will not resolve until the precipitating incident is resolved.
posted by juniperesque at 9:41 AM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, Mefites. The plan going forward is to keep everything piss-on-able off the hardwood floors, soak the area with enzymatic cleaner, keep it unreachable by the cat culprit, disguise the smell and stain from the landlord, and then pay to have it replaced when we move out. I feel much less stressed about this than I did before asking the question, so I appreciate the responses.
posted by whistle pig at 9:46 AM on July 17, 2020

You aren't going to want to hear this, but I had a tenant whose animal peed on my rental unit's hardwood floor (left a 5"x5" dark spot - and the whole reason why I allowed this pet is because the tenant swore to me in the application stage that their animal had never ever peed inside and was 100% house-trained; I will probably not allow pets in the future because of this experience). Anyway, I spoke with a hardwood guy that I had a good experience with before, and he quoted me $1200+ to fix it. He said you can't sand out animal pee easily because of how it soaks into the wood and the nature of the stain (he said other stains can be sanded out more easily, but animal pee is an exception). He said you basically have to replace the boards, which is a fiddly job if it's in the middle of the floor. Then you have to have to have the hardwood guy sand and stain the new boards, and then have him back once or twice to do polyurethane coats with sanding in between. He said one has to try to match the repaired patch to the original floor stain and the repair may well be visible: he said that if you're not having the whole floor refinished at the same time, it's suboptimal. He also said that if the pee has soaked into the subfloor, the odor might not come out unless I have the subfloor replaced too, which would presumably entail replacement of a large patch of hardwood floor (4'x8'?). My tenant was very upset about the amount of their security deposit I withheld, and I was pretty disappointed about a multi-stage repair over several days and concerned about how the aesthetics would blend when it was done.
posted by ClaireBear at 10:37 AM on July 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

In case it's not clear from my comment above, fixing this is not a DIY job. It may cost more than your security deposit, especially if there are multiple spots and/or the subfloor underneath needs to be replaced. I think that you have a moral obligation to your landlord to pay to have it fixed professionally and completely, and to cheerfully eat the additional cost if it is more than your security deposit (and make that clear to your landlord). You have had the enjoyment of having your cat in your unit, and your landlord trusts you to leave the unit in the same condition that you came into it. Leaving your landlord holding the bag is not right. (Not that you were thinking of doing that, but my tenant wanted me to eat the cost of the fix.) I also think you need to tell your landlord - ideally now, but if not now, at least at the point when you give move-out notice (so that your landlord can line up hardwood repair for the time between tenants: if you leave it for your landlord to discover after you move out, he/she will probably have to wait a few weeks to get on the hardwood repair folks' schedule, and may have another tenant already lined up who will either have to have the hassle of having the repair while they live there (it's stinky with fumes and dirty/dusty with sanding, or have their move-in pushed back maybe a month, neither of which would be kind of you).
posted by ClaireBear at 10:47 AM on July 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: ClaireBear, I'm not expecting this will be cheap--I was definitely thinking four figures. So, yeah. I wish I could undo the situation.
posted by whistle pig at 10:48 AM on July 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

I also vote for a significant application of enzymatic cleaner in the meantime-- Anti-Icky Poo

Microban is also good for just covering scent.

Ozium is also a good product for scent reduction.
posted by oflinkey at 1:00 PM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Thank you for handling this so thoroughly, whistle pig. It makes life easier for cat lovers who are also renters.
posted by amtho at 2:23 PM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

This is not your decision to make. This is your landlord's decision. You have a responsibility to let your landlord know, right away, so they can assess the damage and determine how they want to repair their property.

Not telling them, hiding it or repairing it yourself would be unethical.
posted by halehale at 3:54 AM on July 18, 2020

My lease says, " no changes or major repairs by tenant." fwiw
posted by j_curiouser at 4:30 PM on July 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

To get rid of cat urine smell on hardwood requires either replacing the wood entirely or encapsulating the odor using a shellac-based sealant. BIN and KILZ are two brands that have a shellac-based sealer in their line. Most hardware stores carry one or the other brand. Normal primer or paint will not work to contain this odor. The key is the shellac. You can buy BIN and KILZ in full cans or in spray cans.
posted by mortaddams at 8:29 PM on July 18, 2020 [1 favorite]