I have a friend who rents out an apartment in her home. The current tenant will be moving out shortly after living there for 4 years with 5 cats. When you step into the apartment, the air quality is so bad that it feels like you get a mouthful of kitty litter. Any tips on how to clean out this place once the current tenant is gone? Should we set up some sort of air purifier? Will it be sufficient to re-paint the walls, or do we need to wash the walls too?
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Isolate where the odor is coming from, is it from the carpet? IME the smell of kitty litter tends to cling to textiles versus hard surfaces like wood or walls.
Sometimes just a quick vacuum and some opening of windows can get the scent out. But if it is urine, you have to isolate the spots and treat them. Either rip up carpet and replace, or if that is not an option, use a blacklight to find the urine spots and treat. I usually do soapy water, then spray down with distilled white vinegar. Once that dries, I spray with Angry Orange. It does work pretty well.
If your friend expect to collect on the security deposit, they will need receipts for work done which generally means hiring a pro. Just fyi!
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If cat pee is into the carpet and pad, it often needs to all be replaced, and the sub floor sealed with Kilz (or a similar product.)
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Fortunately there’s no carpet. To me, it smelly like kitty litter, but not like urine. I don’t have cats, so I’m definitely not an expert on these smells. I’ve always helped my friend clean the unit between tenants so I think our plan will be to rent an industrial air purifier for a day, and the see what it smells like after that. The current tenant has a lot of stuff packed in there so hopefully the bulk of the odour leaves with the stuff.
Thanks for the tip!
Fortunately we’re not dealing with carpet. It’s laminate flooring, upstairs, painted wood floors downstairs so I’m not sure if that will retain odours.
Can she not open up the windows and use fans? That would work quicker and better than an air purifier. But if it is freezing outside I guess that is not a good option. Maybe repainting the walls might get rid of some of the smell. Or mask it with the smell of new paint.
I have zero knowledge of air quality, but I’m guessing that if I walk into the apartment and immediately get dry mouth (feels like a mouthful of kitty litter), there’s an air quality problem that goes beyond just a bad smell. Are there particles in the air that could cause health problems? And would windows open for a few days be enough to get rid of those particles? The tenant isn’t moving out until early summer, so we could have windows open for a few days but we’d need to keep screens on the windows - not sure if that would impede actually cleaning the air?
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Kitty litter has no smell, unless it’s a scented litter & that’s usually a pleasant smell.
What you’re smelling is litterbox contents & likely from feces or urine deposited outside the box & onto the laminate or wood floor.
A shelter advised me to use commercial douche to remove cat urine smell - any “flavor” except vinegar.
Test on a small area first to make sure it won’t damage the laminate finish or paint on the wood floors.
If it’s urine & has gotten onto the wood you may have to sand down, treat & repaint.
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This is great advice! The area where the litter boxes are is laminate, so hopefully the cats haven’t peed on the wood floor.
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Thanks for the great tips, everyone! When I step into the apartment and take a whiff, my first thought is to burn the place down🤣. It’s good to know there are a few relatively simple things we can do instead.
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Was tenant keeping intact tomcats in the apartment?
Oh that would be bad. When I moved here Stinky was a traveling man. He would show up for a few days and move on (my cats were all fixed). One day I accidently left my truck window open and he got in there and sprayed. I never could get that smell out, it would wane somewhat but every time the weather was humid - here came the smell again. Thus his name. I finally realized I was stuck with him and got him neutered and he quit roaming. But the damage was done to my old truck. Happy to sell the truck to a new owner a few years back.
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No. The tenant is very responsible about that sort of thing.
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Someone on COTH recommended this product many years back and it actually works- “Cat Odor-Off”.
You dilute w/ water in a spray bottle. I’d spray walls and floor (test first), then air out the room
for several days.
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I’ll try it. Thanks!
You may have to paint and use regular paint that has fumes to “drown out” the smell. Alos, you could try removing worst sections of flooring and replacing them. I hate when people don’t take care of their pets properly and this kind of situation happens. It gives all us cat owners a bad name.
I found Resolve Urine Destroyer worked very well on my carpet a year or so ago. I think a cleanser needs to have enzymes to work on urine odor.
Downside — I just went to get the bottle out of the cupboard and it rocked around because the bottom has bulged out. Chemical instability?
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Try Pooph. Google it and see if can help you.
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