Pet urine in hardwood floors of "new" home. Has anyone dealt with anything like this or worse? (fleas, laminate)
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We just purchase a house about three months ago. Upon moving in, we found that the previous owners allow their cats (and dogs we didn't know about) pee all over the house on all of the hardwood flooring downstairs. I don't know how in h*ll we missed the urine smell but we did. Everyone did. Well we tried natures miracle, bleach, etc., but nothing worked. We ended up pulling up all the hardwood in the dining room, kitchen, and the eat-in area. The cats and dogs peed in every corner and and along every wall. It is in the subflooring. It is digusting and nasty. They also left fleas at attack my 3 year old twins and dog poop throughout the yard for them to run through.
I should have known. The owner "refinished" (actually used Mr. Sandless) the floors and tried to cover it up. Also, the AC was on and the humidity was low on the days we saw the house. The house looked so nice and clean when we went to look at it. I feel so royally screwed by everyone. This was our first house. ugh!
Has anyone dealt with something similar to this or even worse? What did you do? If you sought legal action, were you successful?
Btw, we tried shellac BIN but the smell is still coming through a little.
I feel your pain. My first house was the same story, except that it was a beautiful spring and the windows were always open when I visited prior to buying. I never thought anything of it even though I knew the owner had pets. After closing and I went to the house for the first time, it had been closed up for a week and the stink just about knocked me over when I opened the door. It's amazing how some people live, letting their pets **** and **** all over everything. Legal action will get you nowhere except for expensive legal fees. Don't waste your time, just take it as a lesson learned for the next time you buy a house. You did the right thing by pulling up the wood floors - there is no way to get the stink or the stains out. As for the subfloor, try killz oil-based.
If they refinsihed the floors that may be a good indication they knew about the pet urine.
Had you known about the urine floor, would that had "materially impacted" your decission to buy the house or reduced the price you were willing to pay?
Was there a home disclosure statement and was it listed?
Did you have the house inspected?
You may or may not have a claim against the seller. (you may want to post this on the Real Estate Forum if your looking for advice on what action you may be able to take against the seller, agent, etc) But for pet urine, if the regular heavy duty enzimes don;t work, tear up the floor, and sub floor and replace.
If they refinsihed the floors that may be a good indication they knew about the pet urine.
Had you known about the urine floor, would that had "materially impacted" your decission to buy the house or reduced the price you were willing to pay?
Was there a home disclosure statement and was it listed?
Did you have the house inspected?
You may or may not have a claim against the seller. (you may want to post this on the Real Estate Forum if your looking for advice on what action you may be able to take against the seller, agent, etc) But for pet urine, if the regular heavy duty enzimes don;t work, tear up the floor, and sub floor and replace.
Yes, this is what I would do. Those pet enzymes cost around $25 a gallon (I've tried!) and just gave up. Buy a blacklight and walk around with it and turn off all lights. This will show you exactly where urine is. If extensive, I'd forget even dealing with enzymes and I'd remove the sub flooring. Then wash it down with vinegar and water and this should do the trick. I love hardwood floors but can't have them where I live (termite issues) so I've put down laminate. It's easy to clean. But I would think the urine would seep into real wood. Even still, my pets are not allowed to roam freely as I don't want them ruining the laminate.
Having said this, I have two small dogs and I don't expect them to hold it all night, nor do I want to be awakened at 3 a.m. to let them outside. So I have the same problem sort of. Since it's such a small area (laundry room) I will do the vinegar and water thing or the orange enzyme thing but if that doesn't get rid of the smell, then the tiles come up and laminate goes down and they go in crates. Poor pooches.
This is the very reason I don't like animals in the house. I do have dogs and they do come in and out. At night or if left unattended they are in crates. I cannot stand dog and cat urine in the house.
I second the suggestion to called a professional remediation company. We had a bad situation not with pet urine but a gallon of milk leaked into carpet of brand new car and all the upholstery smelled of spoiled, soured milk and NOTHING would work and we couldn't stand to ride in car. A professional cleaning company finally got it out with steam cleaning. Don't keep wasting money doing things yourself when you aren't even sure if what you are doing will work and don't waste more money on blacklights, etc. Talk to a professional cleaner who deals with disaster cleanup and they will know what works to get nasty smells out of subflooring. It may be replacing it or it may not. You can always call them and just see what they have to say.
There are enzyme based materials that you can use on the urine to essentally decay it and make it no longer stinky or yucky. You do not need to pay for a fancy company to do that. It can be difficult to get this material down to the subfloor without removing the flooring, but it can be done. If the urine got there, the enzyme stuff can get there. You staurate it and leave it. The enzymes change the urine so that it is no longer urine.
The stains are a different issue. If the urine has soaked throught he finish and into the wood, the stains will not come out. You can sometimes sand down enough to remove them, but you are dealing with removing 1/4" or so. That is a lot of sanding. You can sometimes bleach them to lighten them. You can stain with a darker stain and it may hide the urine stans some (or it may make them more visible). Ultimately, the discoloration is not going to go away. If you ahve a historic home, you do nto want perfect floors anyway. A 150 year old house looks silly with perfect new looking floors. At the same time, you do nto want prevelant ugly dark stains everywhere. IN most cases, you can find a happy medium and reduce enough of the staining to create a better appearance, but if you want perfect, new floors, then you may as well replace them.
I get a chuckle out of people who buy a house becuase the love the antqiue hardwood floors and then they cover up the floors or replace them because the antique hardwood shows signs of its age. It does not neet to be perfect, it is a floor after all. You walk on it. Where did we ever get the idea that wood floors should be perfect? Probably from flooring companies marketing effort.
Ozone generators -- you can rent or buy one. You cannot be in the house while it's operating, but ozone returns to oxygen soon after the machine is off.
Ozone generators -- you can rent or buy one. You cannot be in the house while it's operating, but ozone returns to oxygen soon after the machine is off.
I thought that those were determined to do nothing except decay the backing on any carpeting in your house. There was an EPA warning about Ozone generators some time ago.
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