Thank you very much for the information. It was suggested elsewhere (another forum) that it might be a Soumak style rug from China. It is a flat weave. I'll have to look up Kilim as well. The designs are dragons around the border. From your suggestions and the other I'm confident that it's wool on a cotton backing. A little odd that there is not one identifying mark or label on it. Fortunately it really does not need a cleaning just yet. It came rolled up in a rubber/felt carpet pad that had an "old rubber" smell to it. I've thrown that out and am using the previous living room 8X10 rug as a pad for now. Now that it's been in the living room for 24 hrs the lingering rubber smell has disappeared.

DH lived in Turkey for a couple of his military years and began collecting carpets then. He said that in sunny CA and in Turkey they often took them outside and hosed them down, but as you pointed out the weather would prevent that. We've done that only in doggie emergencies, but most often our wonderful carpet cleaner cleaned the orientals too, when necessary. I've taken one to be mended and they cleaned it there, but recently DH became acquainted with a rug dealer who had a couple of our rugs cleaned and I'm quite unhappy with the texture difference. Somehow they became softer and as a result tend to move when you walk on them. I'm not sure what the process was, but I suggest that you make certain that they won't alter the texture when the clean off all of that dirt. FWIW, I love the new bedroom color and the rug in the space!

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~

I went through this too, but will never let Katie go. She is more like a friend than a cleaning lady. My kids adore her. She was a doctor in Albania and came to this country and had to start over doing anything she could to make money, including waitressing, babysitting, and cleaning houses. Cleaning is where she found she could make the most money, but in the meantime she put herself through nursing school, while working fulltime cleaning houses. She graduated last spring and now has a full time nursing job but still comes to help me when she can. Some weeks she can't come at all and every week the day changes, but she always comes in the afternoon so that on that day my son can take his nap in his bed instead of in the car (since I have to pick my daughter up at 3 ). She loves to cook like me. She brings me recipes and I share mine with her. She lets my son follow her around the house and gives him little jobs to do. When my daughter is around she does the same for her ... she'll have my daughter pick up her stuffed animals, etc or bring laundry downstairs. I like this, because I too worry about the kids thinking they don't have to pick up after themselves. Anyway, post renovation, I researched different products and am using different things now, but it was just a one time short conversation about the new stuff we are using (most particularly, this Bonax wood flooring cleaning system). She knows that the new house is my baby and I did tell her that I would take care of certain aspects (like cleaning the Butcherblock counter). She'll move on eventually. She is still cleaning because she is saving up money for her wedding next year. She is such an impressive young woman. So personable, hard working and caring. She is so there for me when I need her. She babysits in a pinch (or gets her sister to babysit for me). I hope I won't have to do without her until I am done with the classes I am taking because she is part of the infrastructure that is allowing this to happen for me. sorry so long winded but I feel so fortunate for the situation I have and wouldn't give it up.