How do you get pet urine smell out of a rug?
Work on the urine itself, not the smell. Blot the spot, rinse it with a small amount of cool water and blot again, then treat it with a cleaner made for pet urine and dry the rug quickly with a fan. A scented spray only covers the smell for a day or two.
How well this works depends on how far the urine went. A fresh accident on a thin rug often comes out completely. An old spot that has soaked into the pad usually needs more than a spray bottle.
What should you do right after a dog or cat pees on a rug?
Press a thick stack of paper towels or a white towel into the spot and stand on it for a minute. Swap in dry towels and repeat until they come up barely damp. If you can, slide a towel under the rug as well, so the pad and the floor don’t soak up what comes through.
Then pour a little cool water on the spot, blot it up, and repeat once or twice. Keep heat away from it, so no hair dryer and no steamer, and skip strong household sprays. Keep your pet off the spot until it is clean and dry, because dogs and cats tend to go back to a place that still smells like urine.
How do you get dried urine smell out of a rug?
A dried spot needs to be rinsed before it can be treated. Dampen it with cool water, blot it out, and repeat a few times. Then use a pet urine cleaner and follow its label closely. Many of these cleaners, often sold as enzyme cleaners, need to stay wet on the spot for a while to work, so don’t blot them up right away.
If you can smell urine but can’t find the spot, turn off the lights and look at the rug with a UV flashlight. Old urine usually shows up as a glowing patch. Check the back of the rug and the pad too, because the spot underneath is often bigger than the one on top.
Does vinegar or baking soda get rid of urine smell in a rug?
They can help with a small, fresh accident, but they rarely fix an old one. Baking soda sprinkled on a damp spot and vacuumed up once it is dry soaks up some of the odor. Equal parts white vinegar and water is a common home rinse, but test it on the back of the rug first.
Neither one reaches urine that has gone into the backing or the pad. Don’t mix cleaning products, and rinse with plain water between them. Leftover cleaner leaves the spot sticky, and a sticky spot attracts new dirt.
Why does the urine smell come back after cleaning a rug?
Usually because the urine was never fully removed. It soaks through the pile into the backing and often into the pad, and cleaning the top of the rug leaves the rest behind. When the rug gets damp again, the smell comes right back.
That is why an old spot often smells worse on humid days. Near the coast in Santa Monica, Venice and the South Bay, marine-layer mornings can keep a rug damp for longer, and you may notice the smell more on those days. Heat from a steamer can also set urine smell into the fibers, which is one more reason to keep heat away from it.
Can you get dog urine out of a wool rug?
Often you can improve it, but wool needs a gentle approach. Wool cleans well but holds water, and too much water can make the colors bleed or the rug turn brown as it dries. Use as little water as you can, blot instead of scrubbing, and dry it quickly with a fan.
Urine that sits for a long time can also change the color of some dyes, and cleaning usually can’t bring the original color back. Viscose, jute and sisal are even more delicate. Viscose can yellow when it gets wet, and jute and sisal can brown or show water stains, so ask before you try anything at home.
Should you replace the rug pad after a pet accident?
Lift the rug and check the pad and the floor underneath. If the pad is stained or smells, replacing it is often the simplest fix, because a pad that has soaked up pet urine is very hard to clean. Wipe the floor under the spot as well, and put a pad back only once the rug is completely dry.
When is it time to call a professional?
Call for help when the smell keeps coming back, when there are several spots, when the same spot has been used again and again, or when the rug is wool, viscose, jute or simply too nice to risk. Those are the cases where home cleaning tends to spread the stain or leave too much water behind.
We’ll be honest about what is realistic. Fresh accidents usually respond best, and older or repeated ones are harder. We can often improve them, but we won’t promise the smell will disappear completely. If we don’t think your rug is a good candidate for our process, we’ll tell you before you book.
How much does pet urine rug cleaning cost in Los Angeles?
With us, small and medium rugs start at $99, and a large rug of around 8x10 starts at $139. Heavy stain or pet odor treatment is a $40 add-on, so an 8x10 rug with pet odor treatment comes to $179. Every visit has a $129 minimum, and our prices are the same across Los Angeles.
Rugs are the item we clean most in West Hollywood, and most of those jobs are in apartments and condos, so let us know about parking and the elevator when you ask for a quote. The full price breakdown is in rug cleaning cost in Los Angeles, and every size option is on our area rug cleaning page.
What happens when a pro cleans pet urine out of a rug?
We clean rugs right at your home by default, on the floor where they live. We check the fibers and the backing, vacuum out the dry soil, treat the accident, then rinse and extract to lift out what we loosened. For urine and pet odors we add a separate deodorizing treatment to the cleaning.
Most rugs dry in about 4 to 8 hours, and thick pile or a humid day can take until the next morning. Keep pets off the rug until it is completely dry, and put the pad and furniture back only after that. If your pet had an accident on the sofa too, we can do both in one visit, and our guide to pet urine and odor on a couch explains what to expect there.
Get a quote from a photo
Text a photo of the front and back of the rug, a close-up of the spot, its length and width, how old the accident is and your ZIP to (424) 209-7667. Area rug cleaning starts at $99, and we confirm the final price before you book.