How to Get Rid of Cat Urine Odors on Carpets

We had to get new carpets... I didn't want to have to resort to that, but cleaning, professional cleaning, and many different solutions didn't work. That smell is not easy to remove.

Good luck to you!

I don't think you can really get cat urine completely out of a carpet. Especially if it's from a male cat. Vinegar is good at removing odors - but the enzymatic cleaners that are made specifically for animal stains will probably work better. The big question really is this a one time cat accident that you're trying to clean up or is it from repeated urination in the same spot? If it's the latter, just give up now. Tear up the carpet and start over. You can't even sand it out of hard wood if it was done over a period of years. We had to have some oak flooring re-done when we got rid of an apartment in our house and reclaimed the rooms. Our tenant had a male cat who repeatedly used this one spot. We tore up the carpet and the professional floor guy couldn't get the cat urine out of this one area and instead replaced those boards. Obviously, our former tenant - who we really liked and still do - didn't get his deposit back - but he expected that anyway. (One of the reasons we like him - a realistic, decent guy.)

There's a solution called Nature's Miracle - you can get it a PetSmart, Home Depot...probably Target...
Works wonders.

I have tried this...but it didn't get rid of the smell completely. Have you tried Nature's Miracle? It's made to get rid of pet smells...especially urine. You can get it at Petsmart. That's what worked for me! Good luck!

Vinegar and water works very well for cat urine. However since an animal's sense of smell is so much better than ours, the cat may still be able to smell 'his spot'. You may have to repeat the cleaning several times. Pet stores have products that discourage cats from going into certain rooms or on furniture, such as Stay Off.
Keep the litter box clean. If the cat continues to go other places than the litter box it could be sick or in the case of a male cat marking territory. Cats are much more dificult to train than dogs but sometimes is you put the cat in an enclosed room, bathroom for example, with no comfort items. Just food and water and a litter box for a few days they will often get the hint. Cats love soft places to lay and a couple of days with nothing but a hard floor or bathtub to lay in they give in.

I hear that vinegar and water can do wonderful things, but it never worked for me when it came to "being catted."

I, too, use Nature's Miracle, and I think it's worth every penny. I also have a little blacklight so that I can tell exactly where the catted places are, and I've used the Nature's Miracle on furniture, walls, toys, clothing, even books. You want to get the cat odor off anything that was, um, involved, so there is no fragrance left for kitty to come back to. You might find it worth your while to get some.

Sometimes the problem is too big (we have multiple kitties) and then the big guns - the carpet pros - have to come in. Happily, I don't have to do that very often.

I, too, would skip the vinegar. Why trade O. nasty smell for another? LOL

Get the Nature's Miracle, as suggested below.

If the pee is in the carpet, then it's also in the padding and even professionally cleaning them might not work. :(

I feel bad for you, but after our experience in this last year, I say give it up and invest in new flooring. And fix the cat pee issue as well. We had gotten an adopted female cat...so fat and sweet natured. But we didn't know there were suggestions and general rules for having more than one indoor cat regarding litter boxes, etc. Our older cat always had her litter box (a small and hooded one), in the laundry/utility room...noisy and small, etc

So we adopted fat cat and a few moths later I started to smell pee. CRUD! We got the Natures Miracle, did all the recommendations I could find..and did the professional carpet cleaning. Went to the vet to make sure she was OK and got alot of better info.

With multi cats you should have at LEAST 2-3 boxes in different parts of the house...quiet places too. Especially if you didn't have any of the cats since kitten hood, so they might be accustomed to another type of litter and a different noise level for doing their business. Plus we determined our older sweet to us, but witch to others and to this new interloper of a cat was intimidating the new fatty cat so she couldn't get to the one potty box we had. Also fatty cat was too FAT to use the hooded small box we had.

So we got several rubber maid low sided boxes..did a litter preference test (on top of the peed on carpet as per vet instructions)..and slowly weaned the chosen box away from the pee area..a few inches at a time to the new room it would be in.

We were told by vet materials, Professional carpet or any sort of heat/steam cleaning is one of the worst things you can do..the heat set the stinky junk into the fibers. Don't do it!!!! We did...didn't make a difference and boy when we finally fulled the carpet back were we really surprised by how bad it was.

In the end we pulled up carpet and pad, washed the floor with bleach water..let it dry and used KILLZ paint on the entire sub floor (recommended by the vet materials and by the carpet cleaner and others we know in building industries...it is used for smoke damaged homes, etc)..2 coats....then put inexpensive wood laminate flooring down (it was our dining room carpet getting yucked on..so we did the whole small level in the laminate..entry, dining and kitchen)..not my first choice but what we could afford and it will last a bit.

Our kitty situation is worked out with the multi boxes on different floors and rooms in the house...and I watch Miss fatty catty closely as I still get nervous but we have had no further incident and she is a great addition to our family.

So...my long winded advice..solve the peeing problem in itself...don't do steam or professional cleaning...it will ruin the carpet anyways and set the smell into the fibers....and if its extensive and you are super sensitive to smells...just look at your budget for replacement flooring right now...cat urine never actually comes out no matter what. Sorry.

My mom uses a 50/50 vinegar and water solution on her carpets for dog pee and says it works well. I don't like the smell of vinegar so I don't use it and am not sure if it work as well on cat urine to keep the cat from reusing the same space if that is an issue. She always saturates the area, blots it back up and repeats several times before letting it dry.

I use nature's miracle and saturate the carpet for cat urine, hairballs, etc. I have not noticed a smell or stain after doing this. I have also put it in the carpet cleaner we have instead of soap for large stains, old stains that were there when we moved into one house, cat urine, etc and the stains always seem to come up and the carpet is nice and clean. I like the nature's miracle because it is made for animal stains and is an enzyme cleaner.

Hope it works out and you have a clean carpet soon!