bad kitty

[woodmills1]

seems one of my customers cats has been relieving itself in the corner of the maple floor i installed last year.  I sanded and tried houshold bleach but one strip is still quite red/black.  I think I will try oxalic acid next, any other tips?

[SasquatchMan]

Thing is, cat urine is full of ammonia, isn't it?  The cat's chemically assaulted the wood, and once you do that kind of thing, it's arful tough to get it back.  Kinda like burning - a lot of these reactions tend to only go one way.  You can try the acid, but my guess is you'll have to sand to clean wood (which may not exist - the piece could be saturated) or replace a piece and glue it in with urethane subfloor adhesive...  good luck.

[dail_h]

   Did'ja kill the cat? I would'na thought warranty would cover cat pee

[DonE911]

That sux...

I can't tell you how to fix that spot on the floor, but I can tell you how to keep it from happening again :

My wife and I raise Bengal cats, but they only visit in the house from time to time and they have a litterbox.  Accidents on the cats behalf are not forgiven by the people....  Actually the cats have a pretty nice place of thier own ( well did before the hurricane ) and I don't have accidents in there....

[karl]

That has got to be one of the most offensive odors on earth!

Way back in another "wifetime", when I was young and foolish, "we" bought a wreck of a house that had been lived in(not sure that is the proper term in this case) by two old ladies(?) and eleventeen bazzilion cats.
Tore that thing out to the framing to renovate and five years later during damp periods you could still smell cat p***.

To get back to the topic- Think ya might have to rip out and replace some flooring.....

I love cats- they taste like chicken :

[Mark M]

Well I wish I could impress everyone with some chemical wisdom but my memory is failing (keep forgetting to take my memory pills). There are some things you might try:

  Distilled water  

  Chlorine bleach as already mentioned.

  An acid (as you mentioned), citric, acetic (vinegar), muriatic, etc.

  A base such as sodium hydroxide (lye), Castrol Super-clean, Easyoff over cleaner, etc.

  An oxidizer such as hydrogen peroxide

  Trisodium phosphate

  Baking soda.

Like I said I can't remember a good cure but I can tell you these chemicals are all very different and one of them should do it.

Good luck

PS - can't guarantee you won't discolor the wood.

[etat]

A cats place is NOT in the house.

A cat that comes in the house ought to be shot with buckshot.

Right between the eyes.

Same thing if they leave tracks on your car or truck.

Show em NO mercy.

USED to be my way of thinking!

However................................

Some of ya, most probably a very few of you has read what I wrote a while back about Midnight, my dog.

Far enough back I even wrote about a sorry no account cat even.  
___________________________________________________

Anyways, it's friday night and I hate to bring back up the ole thread where I used to go to run my mouth. I reckon it's finally been given a decent burial.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Midnight weren't much more than just a pup when one day somebody distributed a little bitty kitten in our front yard.  The first time I seen it Midnight was carrying it in his mouth.  He was playing with it like some cats like to play with a mouse.  He'd tote it a little whiles, turn it loose, let it think it was getting away, and then he'd terrorized it some more.

I was mostly working ten or twelve hour days back then so that cat was the least of my worries, I didn't care.  However, I wouldn't a give a plug nickle for that cat making it til morning.

Skipping along a few weeks and that  cat's still alive, and it and the dog are pretty good friends.  Didn't matter to me, I STILL hated dang cats.

I reckon the wife and kids kinda took up with it and they named the cat Samantha, after some cat they'd seen on TV at one time or another.  After a while it got to tracking up my ole truck and I wanted to SHOOT it, but I reckon ya gotta kinda go ahead and get along with yer wife and kids on some matters even if ya don't want to.

The cat gets about 5 or 8 months ole and EVERY time I'd open the door to the house it'd run between my feet trying to get in.  and EVERY time, I'd take my foot and sail it through the air.  Not necessarily kicking it, just getting my foot under it and sailing it as far as I could.  Believe it or not a can will ALWAYS land on it's feet.

But as the ole saying goes, ain't no dang cat coming in MY HOUSE!



Until it was about a year old that's the most attention I'd pay THAT DURN CAT excepting for on day when I noticed sumpthin odd;

I called a family meeting and explained the difference in ........................female........................and.................
male cats.

Henceforth, Samatha.........................................................
became................................SAM.

Didn't make NO never mind to me, I musta kicked that dang cat outta my house.............HUNDREDS of times.


to be continued.....................

[etat]

Just kidding


One day I got off of work early.  I came home and settled in my easy chair.  It was hot summertime and there I am, settled in with the air conditioner blowing.  Just a snoozing away with my feet kicked back.  

And then........

Fer some reason I wake up, kinda.  Ya know when yer sleeping real good and finally you stretch and manage to open just one eye as you're not really wanting to wake up.

You know what?.......................

That dang cat done slipped in that house sneaking by me some how, and had done climbed up on that foot stool between my ole legs and..................That  sorry no account cat done got up enough nerve to be a SLEEPING

IN MY HOUSE

RIGHT BETWEEN MY LEGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And when I woke up it woke up, opened one eye, looked at me, streached and ...............

I SWEAR.........................went right back to sleep.

I also swear this is the truth.  I looked at that cat, (I didn't care that they'd named it ole SAM, I always called it cat), and says.  

"CAT" says I, "You is undoubtedly the most stubbornest animal on earth.  You K:NOW I'm a just a gonna kick you outside, and still you've got the nerve to come in here anyways.  The only other thing I've EVER know that was as stubborn as you is ME, and that includes man, or beast"

"You WIN", "go back to sleep"

As did I.

Later the wife comes in with the kids.  Sees that cat in the house, goes to grab it,


And I explain to her how it's a gonna be.

That's MY dang cat, and it can dang well come in the house if it wants too, you leave it along.

She about passed out on the floor until I told her why, and what I'd told that cat.
__________________________________________________

I don't know why but that cat never did mess in the house. Of course we never did get to where we'd let it stay in the house all the time but I swear, if it had to go it'd come get you to let it out.  I swear this is the truth.

Ole Sam is long gone but I've still got one of his offspring down the line.  A female, which we had fixed so she couldn't have kittens. She has one blue eye, and one yellow eye.  She's about five years old now. And she's the same way.  If she wants to go she'll come and tell you.

Her name is Kit Kat.  And she's my buddy.

[etat]

Sorry for getting off topic.  I have no idea how to fix the floor.

[CHARLIE]

I don't know anything that will get rid of cat urine smell. The only thing you can do is seal it in with shellac.  Try to lighten the dark stain with the bleach and then when dry, coat that area with a couple of coats of clear shellac.  The shellac will seal the smell into the wood and you won't smell the urine unless you remove the shellac.

[Timber_Framer]

Thing to do is neutralize the acids in the urine Baking soda being Alkaline and urine being acidic the baking soda mixed with water should do the trick if it's not too bad a stain.
Also all large pet supply stores carry some sort of enzyme neutralizer, so I'd check with the pet store before the hardware store

[Tom]

Don't know if this is worth examining or not.

www.urine-off.com
         or
http://www.redhotcarpetcleaning.com/en-us/cat_urine.html

http://www.vet.ohio-state.edu/docs/indoor_cats/urine.html

http://www.tipking.com/Pets/Cats/Cat_Spray_Urine/

And just in case you are in need of a humorous story:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmafp/is_200402/ai_kepm365942

[etat]

A good Kitty, big, fat, and lazy. One blue eye and one yellow eye, much much brighter than they look in the pictures..





Back in the day I never, ever thought I'd a be taking up fer a cat.

I sure do hope I ain't a suffering from amnesia! :D

[SwampDonkey]

CK:

Mother had cats here at the house for years, the last one was over 17 years old before she got rid of her when her and father moved to their new house. Yup, I'm still here.. Maybe they outta have booted me instead. :D :D

On the sublect that cats are smart enough to go outside for their business. Most all our cats did that, excpt the last one when it got older and when it was winter time. It didn't like the cold in its old age. You could put it out to do it's thing, but as soon as you let it in and gave it no mind it would do its thing up stair next to the attic door as if in defiance. :D

Another thing about cats, as soon as they get used to eating from a can they come running everytime the can opener runs. I used to do that to tease the cat, sometimes without a can of food, just the noise. :D

The best cat we had was one that follwed me around like a dog. Down to the garden, walking along the road etc. Even when it had kittens once, it came along as if to ask for a place to have the litter, so I fixes a box with some old coats and she had the babies in the box. Even had some dang cats that liked ot have their kitten in the punch outs behind the kitchen wood stove. The punch outs as you know are the round hole on the back to allow venting of heat from the stove.

Dang animals

[SwampDonkey]

I would recommend the baking powder remedy, or Murphy Vegetable oil soap.

[sprucebunny]

The pet stores (and Tom's links) have special enzyme stuff.I bought a 2 yr old travel trailer last fall and it was fine till I went camping and spilled water in the closet. Or somewhere. Ripped out all the carpet and what wouldn't come out , I sprayed w/ enzyme stuff and it seems to be better.
But most anything is likely to discolor wood.
I'd remove the wood, spray the sub-floor and put new wood in. Furniture will hide seams ;D

[CHARLIE]

No need to remove the wood. Just seal it with a couple of coats of shellac.

[woodmills1]

Wow! I finally hit a topic that generated replys.

I wasn't much of a cat person till I met Kathy, we haven't been without one since.  We lost too many outside cats so the 3 we have now stay in all the time.  One is a little challenged on using a box so we do have a few accidents and use the enzyme stuff.  It works on smell but not too good on stains.

I found oxalic acid at a true value under the name wood bleach.  I will try that the next time I go over to the customer.  Got to harvest some oak to cut a large 1x6 fence order first.  Of course it snowed the day after I got the order.