Non Urine Pet Odors

Here is the situation.  One room I did in a home that had no odor now smells of dogs and yet the current owners of the home never have had dogs.  The previous owners I am told did have 3 larger dogs and this is the room with the large dog door so I do suspect the odor is in the wood subfloors and not in the carpet which appears new.  It doesn't smell of urine or feces, just dogs that need a bath.

What treatments would you recommend using a VLM method or will I need to use some serious work using an extractor and a serious enzyme mix to knock this down? 

I can't see any way that any bonnet or similar system could raise the dead, that is what I might have seen with extractors in the past.

What chemicals would you recommend?


Edited by duckcountry - 07/November/2008 at 1:30am

Thank you for the lead.  I order from JonDon here is the states and ordered some Milgo SR.  I will try it with a bonnet and see what works.  Of course I will do a heavy spray followed by agitation and a 20 minute dwell.

Wish me luck - let you know what happens.

Butane torch?? let dwell for 2 to 3 minutes?? guaranteed

Cover ups. You gotta love em

Odorcide might be another one to try on the job. Works pretty well in conjunction with an encap product... just out of curiosity, what cleaning agent did you use and in the event of it being a "cover-up" as you think, did they actually simply lay the new carpet straight over the old as I found they did at my girlfriend's place.

That being the case, introduction of moisture, on the wrong carpet (e.g. polypropylene or polyester) with adverse weather conditions could have all contributed...

FreshAire -  I used VacAway's Quantum Green letting the pads do all the work in a dry state, attacking the carpet N/S the E/W.  The room smelled fine when I went into it for the first time and it was in great shape, a newer nylon looped pile so I wouldn't expect anything.  It was raining that day as rainy season has started and won't end until May.  It smelled great when I walked out of the room and when I went back after the entire job was done.  Even with fans going, the cold temps of mid 40s and humidity of 0% turned this into a 4 hour drying time which probably allowed a wicking of the organic smells found in the subfloor to wick through the padding and onto the carpet.  HWE would possibly have made matters worse is my suspicion.
I did do a urine treatment when she called me back out saying a cat got onto the carpet after I cleaned.  I used the UV light and identified 6 spots that a male cat sprayed  or urinated on but this smell is nothing like cat urine or any urine for that matter.  I checked those spots after cleaning them to make sure the only smell was wet carpet.  I love using the waterclaw and the chemical I used was OSR from ProChoice.

doug - I think this was the previous owner's dogs room where they spent most of their time and what I am smelling is wet german sheperds that need a bath.  I was raised around cats and dogs and .... o yeah, it smells like the inside of a dog house.  My guess is from the strength of the odor now, those dogs laid wherever they wanted. 

danmarck82 - thank you, I will share the results.  JonDon has the chemical scheduled for UPS Delivery this coming Monday.  I have been cleaning myself since 1971 when we cleaned by shampooing using coconut oil based products on wool, woven cotton and polyester back then and I can say without hesitation that I am pleasantly surprised by the challenges some jobs offer.  In fact, I think it would be safe to say that I will go to my grave having not experienced every 'what-if' our industry will have to offer.

I enjoy this board way more than I could ever enjoy Mikey's not to say THAT is a bad board but the caliber of people here and the willingness to share thoughts and ideas with everyone new and tested is above reproach and has no rival in my book.  I have been on others, the experience and willingness to share without requiring a payment is here, the others either have less experienced members, members who talk down to anyone asking a question or they require  a membership to get any value. 



Edited by duckcountry - 09/November/2008 at 12:25am

I'll give them a try too.  Thanks, FreshAire.