The beautiful white-oak floors in my apartment, installed in the 1920s, were badly discolored by the previous owner’s cats and/or dogs. The floorboards were turned black from the urine in areas the size of large puddles.
In addition, the smell was overpowering when the temperature of the air exceeded 50 degrees, and more so when it was also humid. You could smell it in the elevator or the hallway, even!
The advice we received from the contractor we chose proved mistaken: He sanded the floors, applied a dark stain to obscure the discoloration, and used two coats of polyurathene. Quick and relatively easy — but it didn’t work.
As soon as the hot summer of 2003 hit, the smell and discoloration returned- -with a vengeance! The moisture w/in the floors was drawn to the surface, so the floors actually sweated.
We’re trying to find other solutions — or is replacing the floorboards the only way to eliminate my main concern, the smell of pet urine and the moisture???
Help!
Edited 12/13/2003 1:57:39 PM ET by rob
Edited 12/13/2003 1:58:13 PM ET by rob
Edited 12/13/2003 2:10:06 PM ET by rob
Replies
Try oxalic acid. It works very well on urine stains.
You'll have to sand to bare wood again.
Dilute solutions to start, go stronger as required. Repeat as required, and it's likely you'll have to repeat several times.
The problem is that the ammonia in the urine reacted chemically with the tannin in the oak and dyed it a purple-brown-black color. Some people pay dearly for fumed oak, and here you are the ingrate complaining about it :) Previous poster wa corrct, you need to remove the finish and apply a bleach. Look at woodworking supply web sites for wood bleach...clorox is not appropriate. You may not have to sand the oak, a chemical stripper for the varnish (or whatever) should work, or you could carefully (and tediously) hand scrape it...all you need to do is take off the sealing film so the bleach can attack the stain.
Do it right, or do it twice.
For the smell, Luka recommends cider vinegar.
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages/?msg=25044.5
Vinegar does work well for fresh urine. The acid neutralizes the ammonia and kills bacteria that add to the smell.
But I haven't had as much luck with older urine stains and smells settled in this bad. I have read here that enzyme based cleaners work better to lift out these smells. A search of the archives will bring up more. I think this discussion happens every six months.
Too bad the contrator only dealt with the surface instead of treating the wood deeper..
Excellence is its own reward!
---"... enzyme based cleaners work better to lift out these smells..."---
Look in any pet shop for "Nature's Miracle", enzymes made to break up the organic molecules our noses sense as "smells".
Kennels use that by the gallon and it is relatively cheap.
Don't know how it will work on your floor, so try it in a hidden spot first. We have used it everywhere without trouble, on carpets, wood, linoleum, tile floors.
Piffin,
I have had excellent luck with older urnine issues using a 50/50 mix of white vinegar and water sloshed libereally about and the dry for a week before coating with Bins sealer. Unfortunately my experience ends there, never tried to save the finish in a rental. :-) DanT
For what it's worth
I get some work from a cleaning company
cousin had this problem, dog, hardwood floor
Steve-o gave me a bottle of magic something
worked like a champ. No idea what it was, but pro cleaning outfits might be a great place to spend ten bucks. Its their business. No smell. Agree with Mongo. Oxalic should take the stain. If you don't find it at a hardware place, check pharmacies. Granular, mix with warm water, don't get it on you.
"The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb " lyrics by Roger Waters