Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

A message to frustrated cat-owners: Beneath I will outline my last 5 weeks' worth of cleaning methodologies, with the intention of rescuing an entire, wall-to-wall carpeted basement from a repeated onslaught of cat urine. Below is a verifiable tale of desperation, over-trust in joke products, and final resolution (thank God!), without needing to resort to bleach, or needing to rip up the carpet, re-subfloor and/or KILZ treat to quarantine urine odor derivatives. This conclusive review is the byproduct of trial and error, scouring online forums, reviews, chemistry blogs, etc., in order to find a working solution to cat urine. I recognize that this is an "n=1" type situation, so hopefully success is replicable, but please try these methods and report back their efficacy! I apologize if the results do not repeat for you. Situation: 2-floor apartment (that's right, APARTMENT, hence my efforts to neutralize pee scent before pricing out the cost of tiling/hardwood for a 600 sq. ft. basement owned by the landlord) with two cats, one a domestic tabby, the other a native Maine coon. Carpet was a foreign entity to them upon moving in, and between a combination of not cleaning the litter box often enough at first, and letting them be too curious while at work, the Maine coon took to peeing (not spraying) in various spots around the perimeter. Depending on the season and airflow/exchange I either noticed heavily or not at all the ever-present hint of cat pee in our basement, which led to obsessive litter box cleaning, vet visits to determine UTI potential, and final consideration of giving my cats up for adoption. I invested in a Hoover SteamVac (Hoover SteamVac Carpet Cleaner with Clean Surge, F5914900 review elsewhere... AWESOME PRODUCT!) and started religiously cleaning the carpet weekly, at which point I would begin to smell the pee more acutely. I used the generic carpet cleaners at first, laden with cover-scent. They would only mask the stench, and then it would magically reappear and more powerfully somehow! Online research and visits to local pet supply stores (read: places where BS products are not only in abundance but insanely marked up to unjustifiable proportions) led to buying both an overpriced UV light and the first couple gallons of Nature's Miracle Urine Destroyer. The UV light examination was eye-opening (caught a couple spots of prior-cleaned puke that still showed up under UV) and saddening ("hotspots" were at this time diluted to the point where the UV light steadily glowed dimly, suggesting steam-cleaning had actually diffused the liquid/molecules beneath the carpet and seemingly out of reach). I also purchased a 1-gallon pump sprayer, for acute application of the urine destroyer, as to have it penetrate and soak the sub-floor prior to steam-clean removal. After repeated attempts, with varying cleaners, incubation times, concentrations, etc., I finally found a one-two punch in a SimpleGreen product (disinfectant), followed up by homemade peracetic acid (sterilant), which proved to actually work! Reasons why the NM portfolio are useless are beneath, along with full details of our trial/error. Methods for each round of testing: 1. UV light and on-knees sniffing the carpet were used to identify "hotspots" for treatment 2. Pump sprayer was used over marked areas to apply respective savior product at a pressure intended to penetrate carpet and contact particle board subfloor, concentric, expanding circles were applied to ensure encompassing coverage 3. Products were allowed to incubate for at least 1 hour before SteamVac removal 4. SteamVac was equipped with respective product, as not to cause chemical reaction via mixing and carpet was then bathed/cleaned according to normal SteamVac usage instructions 5. Carpet was air/fan-dried for 24-48 hours and then inspected for presence of odor before re-trial. 6. All along, cats were limited to upstairs (hardwood) living, by installing a tall Carson pet/child gate (another awesome product) Lineup of products used in order (maybe it matters?): 1. Bissell SteamVac generic carpet cleaner 2. Simple Green 11001 Clean Building All-Purpose Concentrate Cleaner (diluted in water 1:16, 1:8, 1:4) 3. Nature's Miracle Deep Cleaning Carpet Shampoo (undiluted) 4. Nature's Miracle Just for Cats Advanced Stain And Odor Formula (undiluted) 5. Nature's Miracle Just for Cats Urine Destroyer Intense Urine Stain & Odor Remover (undiluted) 6. *Simple Green 30501 d Pro 5 One-Step Disinfectant (diluted in water 1:16, 1:8, 1:4) 7. *Homemade peracetic acid (5% white vinegar, 3% Hydrogen Peroxide mixed as to create equal-parts in gallon volumes; 80oz H2O2 + 48oz CH3COOH) * indicates products that solved issue Comments: First and foremost I am not a practicing chemist, so why these things did/n't work chemically-speaking is beyond me. I had nothing to lose, so the trial and error was necessary regardless. That being said, the last two products tested proved successful, maybe in combination, or otherwise; I'm only speculating in my conclusions beneath. After using the Simple Green Pro 5, the smell, while still present, had changed somewhat. The SG has a faint scent itself, so identifying the urine smell was easy, but something had slightly changed, maybe indicating a change in the bonding chemistry of the urine byproducts and the wood/carpet fibers? In contrast, the peracetic acid carried a heavy, acrid odor, which made discerning other smells impossible while it soaked/dissipated. I SteamVac'd with a 1:16 SG1/water mixture afterward to suck up residual acid and neutralize its odor, after which I was incredibly surprised that the urine odor was gone entirely! The vinegar odor lingered and lessened with drying until it subsided completely. Again, how/why this worked would be something for a chemist and a redox rxn, but it DID work for me. Similarly, NONE of the Nature's Miracle products worked AT ALL! Conclusions on NM portfolio: I have many issues with the NM products and how they're sold. 1. Arbitrary pricing - depending on the distributor (by the way Amazon was the best for pricing on all of these), pricing varied by 150%, suggesting that either no contracts are in place, or NM/pet supply stores are marking up for higher margins. Of course, I understand there is a sales volume component here, but this made buying in-person very frustrating all around. 2. Proprietary-ness of products - since the "secret ingredient" (scented water most likely) is proprietary, they get away with not labeling chemical structure of all/active ingredients... it seems like an Oxiclean-esque product, but who knows? Additionally, they are allowed to mandate "no dilution" for proper function, which dictates usage of gallons instead of oz. in order to diagnose and treat the issue. It's pseudoscience at best, and shady marketing at worst. If your product really is the only one that can solve the cat urine issue, get a patent and disclose the ingredients. The me-too market will take time to catch up and meanwhile your word-of-mouth success will spread into easy domination of the market space. That is if your sales intentions are long-term and transparent. 3. "Other cleaners can chemically 'set' odor/stains" - are you kidding me? Unless something is being bleached, what advice is this?! The only way to set something into a carpet fiber would be to heat-fuse/melt the two physically. Or, are you referring to chemistry, in that you mean "bond", suggesting that other chemicals may cause a reaction that (1) strengthens the bonds between urine odor and substrate (underlying material in this case), or (2) provides an enzymatic catalyst causing a reaction which actually produces a greater abundance of the odorous byproduct? Either way, this instructional sub-clause is just a way to cover legal bases, assuming your product won't work at all... and it doesn't, at all. Closing Remarks: I lived in a piss-house for months, and then tried everything in order to stave off giving up my cats, or using bleach. And to be honest, the detractor for bleaching wasn't the unpredictability of success and/or the ensuing deterioration of everything it contacted, it was the price-tag associated with proper PPE in order to assure I wasn't exposed to the invariable byproducts of NAClO and any of the ammonium compounds in urine/SimpleGreen Pro 5... there's just too much risk involved for the sake of an apartment. I see this homework assignment as being my duty for owning cats, and ironically the resulting price-tag associated about equals parts/labor for a re-flooring anyway. I honestly lost all hope in reviving the basement after the repeated failures with NM, which is why the last two efforts proved so mind-blowing. I would love to have a chemist speculate or even recreate an in-lab microcosm of this, making sure to test these products on BOTH a carpet and subfloor, with differing concentrations and donors for cat pee, because I hate to leave something with "it worked, but who knows why?", since this makes my recommendation about as scientifically sound as NM's. Nonetheless, I will review the trialed products elsewhere in shorter detail, referring folks back to this one. I chose to outline all details here, since NM is the most popular of the product searches, and will hopefully capture the widest audience of cat owners. Please, try for yourself and provide feedback. I hope we have stumbled onto a solution, instead of another example of hearsay. I apologize in advance if this doesn't work out for you. Hopefully some company will soon produce a cure-all solution, with openly labelled ingredients and scientific justification for its efficacy. Meanwhile, good luck!