Home Cleaning Tips: How To Eliminate Pet Odors

When showing a house to potential buyers, you want it to not only look good but smell nice, too. If your house has lingering pet odors, that alone could turn buyers away. One of the first things to handle when doing a home staging project is pet odors. Here's how!

Start at the beginning. Always try to clean up pet messes right away. However, if it's already gotten out of hand, have no fear, for we are here to give you the solution.

For carpeting -
First you need to locate the specific problem areas. Sometimes this is easier said than done. If so, a good way to find them is to turn off the lights and use a black-light to illuminate them.

After you've found the spots, clean your carpet. There are a few methods here. You can rent or buy a water-extraction machine or a carpet-shampoo machine and use this with cool water (don't use chemicals or cleaners). Then there's also the usual steam cleaning for non-urine pet odors.

Now that your carpet is clean, put a light coating of an enzyme-based odor neutralizer on it. These are available at pet stores and vets' offices. This is the key step to rid your carpet of smells as these neutralizers contain bacteria that break down the proteins that cause the odors, thus, eliminating them permanently. Neutralizers also help with stains. Baking soda can do the trick, if less effectively.

At this point you can sit back and relax for the next 8 hours while you let it sit. When you wake up from your nap it's time to vacuum! Then wait another 24 hours and see how it is. If there is any remaining odor, simply repeat this treatment. In severe cases you may need to replace your carpeting.

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Resources for

Stair Runner, Stair Carpet

Complete Carpet Care

After the expense of putting a carpet into your home, it is a worthwhile to take care of it. Keeping a clean carpet also assures a healthy living environment. Even regular vacuuming alone does not always ensure that your carpet is clean. There are several different ways to care for your carpet.

Vacuuming regularly may not keep carpets perfectly clean but, it does prevent dirt from getting imbedded deep down into the fibers. In a perfect world, those who really care to keep their carpets in the best shape possible would be able to vacuum everyday. But, in the real world, vacuuming a high traffic area at least twice a week is more realistic. For the best results, vacuum slowly over an area going back and forth and side to side in parallel rows about seven strokes for a high traffic area.

But, carpet cleaning goes beyond vacuuming. Shampooing a carpet is a popular method to get carpets clean. A shampoo solution is sprayed onto the carpet which loosens and absorbs deep down dirt. Allow the carpet to dry and then vacuum. Another popular method of carpet cleaning is steam cleaning. This process uses a liquid-based cleaning agent and a steam-cleaning machine which brings dirt to the carpet’s surface.

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Resources for

Stair Runner, Stair Carpet