The previous owner of the property you just bought had multiple pets. Now you have to deal with the odor problem the pets left behind before you can rent the property. Shampooing all the carpets and washing all the floors seems like a logical solution, but will that work actually result in the elimination of the odors?
The way to answer that question is to first understand the cause of the odor. Urine residue is a water soluble and hydroscopic urea salt. When this urea salt becomes damp, it reacts with its surroundings and produces a gas called mercaptan. This gas is the smell associated with urine contamination.
To solve the urine contamination, the urea salt must be dissolved and then removed. If both of these processes do not occur, the contaminated area will become larger and more deeply imbedded in the cracks and pours of the flooring. And, as you know, the smell will remain.
Shampooing a carpet contaminated with urine will remove large amounts of the urea salt. But it won’t remove all of it. Neither will using a treatment call acid wash. You will still get rid of most of the urea salt and a great deal more dirt, but not the odor.
Washing flooring will also remove much of the urea salt, but flooring has an additional dimension which must be considered. Almost all wood flooring uses a tongue and groove design to hold the boards together after being installed. The small cracks between adjacent boards allow the urine, while in liquid form, to seep into the cracks and dry. The dreaded urea salt is thus left in the cracks.
Particle board and OSB flooring expand on this problem due to the hundreds of tiny cracks per square inch inherent in their structure. And though the cracks are small, all of them must be considered. Washing all the urea salt out of all the cracks and pores in the wood is simply not going to happen despite how well you wash the flooring.
Concrete flooring, its hard appearance notwithstanding, is porous. Water can seep through a concrete call or floor, and so can urine. But concrete covered with tile presents an interesting problem due to the gaps between the tile and the cavities between the tile and concrete. These gaps and cavities can and will harbor large amounts of odor-causing material.
Because it takes very little urea salt to produce copious amounts of mercaptan (the odor), additional treatment must be considered. The best treatment to consider is OdorXit.
OdorXit products completely eliminate the odor from urine residue. All OdorXit products work well on a wide range of surfaces and odors because they actually neutralize or absorb the substances that are causing the odors. They do so without enzymes, bacteria, perfumes or harsh chemicals. They are also non-staining, non-toxic and biodegradable.
Consequently, OdorXit is the ultimate odor solution.
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Martin R Meyer is the President of Listening Systems, Inc., and OdorXit is the registered trademark of Listening Systems. Their mission is to provide the highest quality, safest odor-control products at a reasonable price and to offer the best available advice on solving odor problems, even if you don’t use their products. Visit http://www.odorxit.com for a full list of OdorXit products as well as valuable information on solving a wide range of odor problems.
