For example, let's say you have purchased a home, and the previous owner's dog peed all over the floors and carpets. Sometimes you have to pull up the flooring and carpets to get rid of the messes.
For carpet, this is what I have recommended...
1. Pull up the old carpets and pads. Get rid of them, they are destroyed. You'll then see the stains in the sub flooring, whether they are made of wood, cement or stone.
2. Open the windows.
4. Read and follow the Nature's Miracle instructions, on the bottle and on their website. Mop the area, especially the stains, with a bucket of Nature's Miracle. The assumption here is that the product is safe to use on that subfloor, so read the instructions and test an identical flooring material before doing this.
5. Once dry, get down on your knees and smell the flooring. If you can still smell urine, you can try a second mopping.
6. Mop the surface with a sudsy bucket of some kind of flooring soap. Again, test this on an identical piece of subfloor material to ensure that it is safe to use.
7. Once dry, get down on your knees and smell the flooring. If you can still smell urine, now you have a real problem to deal with.
8. OPTION: You might have to pull up the destroyed sub flooring and replace it. I had a student that allowed his Golden Retriever to pee all throughout his home for a very long time. He was a Microsoft engineer, and was gone too many hours and the dog had no other option. He had to pull up the subfloors in his entire house.
9. OPTION: Cement or stone floors. I would hire a professional for this. See if they have a better treatment option than the above.
10. If you have removed the scent, I would then seal the flooring; ask a professional what product to use. I would use a product that would prevent any remaining urine from wicking back up. Once a material is saturated with urine, you can't always get it all out of the subfloor, regardless of the material. This is especially important since if you, say, use a carpet cleaner on the new carpet, that moisture can saturate the subfloor and cause any urine residue to wick upwards into your carpet, and now you have wasted all that money.
11. Scent is never completely removed. Dogs have noses that can detect scent residues that are incredibly small. Some people have great noses, and even if you can't smell the urine, they can... and that can make it hard to have them over as guests, to live there, or when you sell or rent your home.
12. If you are dealing with pet urine stains and scent on an outdoor surface, such as a patio, then you will still need to figure out what you are going to need to do.
13. Urine stain and odor removers are best used for spot cleaning, immediately after an accident in the home. They can't solve every problem with urine.
14. If your dog isn't Housetrained, then you need to get that resolved, as well. Most likely, in most cases, this was the root cause of why the stains and scent were there in the first place. I can give other examples, such as cases where an elderly student wasn't really capable of managing their dog anymore, the dog wasn't let out diligently, and so the problem developed eventually. In these cases, families need to step up and help them. Not always do they need to rehome the dog, but they will need a workaround.
15. Each case has to be evaluated individually. Often the best answer is to hire a professional cleaning company because the problem is beyond your understanding and ability to make things right. Do your due diligence in advance. There is nothing wrong with hiring a dog trainer to help with the training, a dog walker to get the dog out while you are at work, and a professional flooring expert to remove the damages and to come back and regularly clean the flooring.
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