They sell enzyme sprays at pet stores. This is the one I've had luck with - bought small spray bottle size.

Here is a link that might be useful: Petzyme

I use nature's miracle-- it will remove smells as well as stains from bile, urine, etc.

That said-- there is a big difference between MY dogs' stains and smells and someone else's. I just wouldn't consider purchasing a rug that someone else admits has a scent from their pets. If it was easily fixed, they would have cleaned it before selling.

When you go and look at the rug, ask for a damp rag and do a test to see if the colors fade. If they don't and you decide to get the rug, be prepared for the expense of a professional clean if your spot cleaning doesn't work.

Optimistically -- maybe the owner just means it has a lot of cat hair in/on it. Some people are so allergic that it would have to be mentioned.

White vinegar works very well to destroy odors from pet accidents but it might not be enough for cat P. Enzyme cleaners always left a ring or spot when I used them. Maybe I was doing something wrong.

IF it is a great rug and the price is right, it's probably having it washed professionally.

I think i'd come right out and ask the owner if it's spray we're talking about. Sometimes people list that just because of allergies and what not. If it was worded just like that I think it's a bit unclear. Good luck!

I wouldn't buy a rug that someone else's animal wee wee'd on. If the thing has been saturated with urine and has sat a very long time, the probability is you won't get the smell out completely no matter what you use. I have cats and have had to throw things out because the smell just won't come out of some things, i.e., a brand new pair of shoes. The rubber just held on to the odor and nothing would take it out.

I had cats for 20 years. The same ones. They lasted a very long time. I tried all of the above. Eventually, got rid of the furniture/rugs and the cats.

Never another cat again.

If I have another pet that habitually urinates in my house, it will be a goldfish.

I had a similar situation, but I got the rug for free. I brought it to a local oriental rug cleaning specialist. He told me the regular cost for a normal cleaning a rug of that size, which was about 8 x 10, would be $175. The cost for the additional enzyme solution soak, where he left the rug in a vat with special chemicals swirling around it for literally an entire day, would add about $300 - $400 to the cost. At the end of that, he said there was a very good to absolutely definite chance that the rug -- it was an old Heriz from a highly reputable Oregon dealer -- would be bled. That means the red dyes would run into the ivory portions of the rug. Oh -- and after all that, he said he couldn't guarantee that the rug wouldn't smell.

I said thanks but no thanks. I took the rug home and bought the grocery store rug cleaning machine. I was willing to put some money into trying to get the smell out, but not hundreds. My husband and I put the rug in the driveway and spent two solid days working it over with various detergents and enzyme removers. We figured it was worth taking the chance, and we had a lot of fun hosing down the rug, walking the machine over it, hosing, scrubbing soaping -- it was a nice day and the neighbors were all totally entertained by us standing around with our soaps and beating the heck out of the rug with brushes.

We hung the rug to dry over 2 x 4s and ladders in the yard and hoisted a bunch of fans out there and waited a few days for the rug to dry and guess what -- it STILL stank. Well, maybe the aroma was a little sweeter due to the perfumes in the detergents, but underneath that slightly cleaner scent was the unmistakable smell of something really yucky. So, off it went, with the trash.

I would never have wanted it in our house and would never have been able in good conscience to sell it. Oh, and it did bleed. It bled like crazy, turning all the ivory parts of the rug into a soft tangerine color. Lovely, but a little wierd.

I'm glad I didn't pay the pro to try to clean it, I was only out a couple of bucks and an afternoon or two and that was better than a couple hundred bucks.

So no, no stinky rugs for me ever again!

I agree with some of the others. If it's cat urine, I wouldn't touch that rug with the proverbial ten foot pole. If it's just cat hair, that's no big deal. I'm a huge cat lover, but you couldn't pay me to have to deal with cat urine!

Wow  you all are a wealth of info and I'm grateful.

I don't own cats  but when a cat sprays territorially  it is just the same as when they urinate, or is there some other glandular stuff mixed in that gives it that really strong smell that I call "cat spray"? Ie, does regular cat urine always smell that bad??

The rug is 9x12 and listed at $45. I am not wanting to spend a lot of money as it will be for under the DR table where my little ones will be spilling food on it and my dog will be licking it up ;-) I don't mind if its old and threadbare, but I don't want to smell of cat urine ;-)
I am waiting to hear back from the seller on whether it's just used-dirty and cat-hairy or whether it's that all-out rancid cat spray smell. I actually just called a local rug cleaning place and the guy was really nice. Their scenario is where they bring some carpet cleaning equipment and come out to the house and do it outside in your garage or driveway on a nice day. Basically they wash with cleaners / shampoos (he said there is also some enzyme(s) to add for the cat smell), scrubbing, and then suck as much moisture out as possible, and it typically dries within 24 hours. (sounded like the process judithn did :-) He did talk about the risk of bleeding, but said if you have a darker oriental (red/blue), typically you don't notice the bleeding so much. This rug is mostly blue/red. Anyhow he said for the trip out and the cleaning it would be $65 ($55 if I lived closer to town). I am thinking that for about $100 total I might take the risk on the smell. Actually the biggest drawback for me is the seller is about an hour away, and I'm not sure yet I want to make the drive. I'm hoping she can send me some better pics and some more info soon.

LOL, seagrass. We had a rug and a little yorkie poodle. We now have wood floors and a little yorkie poodle. After the yorkie poodle, I will have rugs and no little dogs or cats. Big dog that is easy to house break? Sure. Little dogs that pee on things when they get mad or it rains? No.

I have a dog and two cats and have had good luck, so far, with getting animal smells and stains out of things. The big trick is to use the proper cleaner. After we moved our cat started peeing on our new basement floor and always in the same spot. DH wanted to permanently remove the cat. We tried a couple of things that remove animal urine smell, but I always could smell it in the concrete floor afterward. My friend told me about this stuff called AIP- Anti Icky Poo. It is a totally dumb name but it really worked. I had to order it online but you spray it on the area and enzymes chemically alter the animal urine and make it odorless. It is true that is not as gross if it your own animal making the smell, but it is still pretty gross.

As for the cats and the rug, maybe it is fine, just a little "dirty" from the cats laying in the same spot. Also the animal dander is still active for a while even if you clean it so they may be thinking of people with allergies-- hence the warning.

Add me to those who say that if it's cat pee/spray, run away. My elderly cat has peed on practically every rug I've ever owned, and nothing has removed the odor. Oddly enough, even after cleaning when I've thought the stink had dissipated, it's had a way of returning. With a vengeance. I can't tell you how many decent rugs I've had that have ended up as curbside junk. Amazingly enough, people do stop to pick them up. A couple of times, people have come up to my door and asked if I was getting rid of the rug at the curb (uh, no - I'm just decorating the curb - ???), and I've always told them that it's been drenched with cat pee, but the rugs have been taken anyway. I now live with mostly bare hardwoods, but there's just no way I'd ever have another cat-peed rug in my house. Dis-gust-ing. Nothing smells worse, and it's a stench that doesn't go away.

We sent ours to Atlanta and it cost quite a bit, but we got a discount since we had 3 large ones at one time. It was well worth it. No odor since.

I've heard rug-cleaning professionals say the same thing. If it's cat pee, and it's been there awhile, NOTHING gets it out completely.

I would never buy a used rug without actually seeing it, feeling it, and SMELLING it beforehand. No matter how cheap. You can ignore a worn spot. You can't ignore an odor.

Cat pee - run away!!!! My crazy old female cat, Maggie, ruined so many things by peeing on them I lost count. She went to cat pee Heaven and now can pee wherever she like.

Cat pee Heaven? LOL! So that's where the old "pi$$ers" go! ;-D

My wall-to-wall got rank from dog pee. I phoned every pro cleaner in the phone book and every single one of them said they wouldn't guarantee no smell. If I shampooed the carpet myself, it seemed to bring the smell alive. So I got mad. I put Clorox in my carpet cleaner thinking "better ugly than stinky!" It was a deep brownish red and it didn't bleach out! But the smell died completely. So if and after all else fails, try Clorox as what do you have to lose at that point?

Did your cats pee on the rugs on a regular basis? Mine had almost constant UTI's and would sometimes go on the floor next to the rug, but it might get on the edge, so I would spray. She's gone now and I do miss her, but I do not miss seeing a puddle on my wood floors. :-/

My little old Camille has always been an inappropriate eliminator -- even when no medical problem was present to cause it. I love her dearly, but quite frankly, she's always been slightly nuts. The recent introduction to kittens to our household really caused her to go berserk with the peeing and pooping in all the wrong places, but now that we've turned a spare bedroom into her very own "senior living apartment", she's become a good girl once again and uses the litter box unfailingly. Part of me hates to keep her confined like that, but the larger part of me does not miss finding the little "surprises" scattered throughout the house. That was just gross.

jenny, the different types of cat urine are neutered/spayed or unneutered/unspayed. An unneutered male's urine could be used for stink warfare! That stuff can kill I think. LOL If that rug has one drop of unneutered male urine, you'll have to leave your house. No kidding!! Even unspayed female urine is super stinky. Ask the seller if her cats are spayed/neutered? If not, don't go near the rug. I wouldn't go near it in any case, but if this is the case, you will definitely be throwing money away.

Brutus unanswered the difference between simple pee accidents from neutered or spayed animals and the pee/spray deposited by unfixed animals. Fixed-animal urine stink is bad, but depending on the length of time and the underlying material sometimes you can get it out.

But I have washed cat towels from the bedding of an uneutered feral I took in last fall perhaps two or three dozen times and I can still smell the pee/spray stink. And I use a Euro f/l washing machine and can, and do, go to 205F with all kinds of additives. And nautrally I started when these were fresh sprayings and treated them with several different enzymes and urine smell removing treaments. (BTW, I find a product called Get Serious to be better than Nature's Miracle and Petzyme. All available at Petsmart-type places.)

Anyway, if the rug smells of simple cat urine odor and it has been untreated for awhile, I doubt you could get it out because you might have to use chemicals (enzymes, for instance that are damaging to natural woolf fibers) or such vigorous cleaning that you would damage the rug. But if you wanted to take the chance you could try. However if the smells are from unneutered animals, I wouldn't even bring it to my house to try.

I do feral cat rescue and am totally over the yuck factor of cat pee, but the smell of it still drives me bats.

HTH,

Molly~

The only thing that worked on the 32 pee spots (found with a black light) on my wall to wall in the dining room was Anti Icky Poo as mentioned before. I used a syringe to inject AIP down to the pad (but that's not your problem). Let the enzymes work for a few days then had the professional steam cleaner come in. I haven't had any residual odor.

I looked thru all the posts and didn't see the one solution that REALLY worked for me a few years ago. My beloved, aging cat got upset after a trip to the vet's to find out why she had stopped eating. She thanked me by peeing all over my second floor. The heat rising from the fireplace made the smell even worse. The solution I found after searching online was RUBBING ALCOHOL. But first I had to find all the places. I worked in the dark using a black light. It illuminates all the spots. Then I poured the rubbing alcohol straight on the glowing spots. It worked wonders!! No more smell, and no ring stains. My cat didn't stick with the same place, so I found pee spots all over. The trick is to use the black light to find them all. Alcohol is cheap. Unfortunately I had to use this method a few times before I finally had to put her to sleep from old age. It worked every time! There was no visable evidence from pouring the rubbing alcohol directly on the carpet.

been there, and I would so pass on that rug!

Thanks to everyone who explained the difference between what I called "regular cat urine" and "spray" Â it makes sense. And thanks for all the advice in general.
Unfortunately I haven't heard back from the seller yet :-( but technically I should have to the chance to sniff / decide in person before buying. I will definitely update if there are any further developments.

For $45, I'd go for it (if you like it after seeing it in person). I'm not one that would be bothered by another's cat urine. But you have to decide about the gross factor yourself. and whether or not you can afford to throw it away if it really doesn't work.

We had a runner going up to our 3rd floor that smelled of cat urine (or at least that's what I hoped it was). We sprayed it with febreeze 2 or 3 days in a row and the smell disappeared. This is a stairwell with a door at the bottom and top, so if the smell was still there, it would be noticeable.

The rug is not in Columbus OH is it? The reason that I ask is that my MIL rented a beautiful townhouse in a surburb of columbus, it had tons of character, 2 fireplaces and a dining room rug with cat pee all over it. It smelled awful, the owner told my MIL that it was a very expensive rug and she left it for her to use. It was so stinkey that we rolled it up and put it in the rafters of the garage, my poor teenage son almost threw up helping get it in the rafters. Later the lady sold the condo and my MIL had to move. The rug was still in the rafters. I was just wondering if the new owner was trying to sell it!!

The living room carpet also had to be replaced, it smelled so bad. My MIL did it at her expense. Three of us cleaned that place for 3 days.... the hardwood floors under the carpet were cleaned with natures merical (sp?)...it was worth it though....when we were done it was really cute.

Another consideration is the possibility that the rug is invested with fleas and flea eggs. Been there, done that!!