Sandy said, “I pulled up 25 year old carpet & padding. To my dismay there are pet stains on the concrete. How can I get rid of them?”
Table of Contents:
While fresh urine stains are easier to remove than old ones, they can all be removed from concrete if you have the right type of cleaner. Follow the steps below to remove the stains, as well as any trace of odor that may remain.
Removing the Stains
You Will Need:
- Water
- A towel
- Oxygenated Pet Enzyme Stain Remover
- Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner
- A bucket
- A mop
- Fans
Steps to Remove the Stains:
- Open the windows to ventilate the area as well as possible.¹
- Pour some warm water on the stains, let the water sit on the stains for a few minutes,² then soak up the water with a towel. This will help to remove some of the urine matter so the cleaner doesn’t have to work as hard. If there is a lot of urine in one spot, repeat this step twice.³
- Select a pet enzyme stain remover that is safe for concrete, such as Nature’s Miracle Oxy Formula. When the stain is a bigger problem than the odor, particularly for old stains, it’s best to use an oxygenated enzyme cleaner. Follow the instructions on the bottle of your selected cleaner to treat each of the old stains. Repeat this step as many times as needed.³
- Add a cup of Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner for every ten cups of water in a clean bucket. Scrub the entire concrete floor with the mixture.¹
- Mop the floor to remove the moisture.¹
- Allow the floor to dry with fans pointed on the area if possible and the windows open.¹
Additional Tips and Advice
- When pets urinate on carpet, the amount that soaks into the carpet padding is a much larger spot than the one visible on the carpet. Always clean a spot that is three times the size of the visible spot to ensure that all urine is cleaned from the padding and floor below as well.⁴
Sources
- Joey Green’s Cleaning Magic by Joey Green
- How the Queen Cleans Everything by Linda Cobb
- Pet Clean-Up Made Easy by Don Aslett
- The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Green Cleaning by Mary Findley & Linda Formichelli
Is their some type of sealer I can use to cover up pet urine in concrete?
Desantis,
It would be best to use the method in the article (clean the area first with one of the enzyme cleaners) as that will eat up all of the organic material that is causing the odor and likely be sufficient to stop the odor so no sealant will be needed, though it may require more than one treatment. However, Creto DPS concrete sealant followed by Creto TopSeal is supposed to work to push out odor-causing materials from the concrete and then stop them. Another option is to try using Kennel-Seal. It is specifically meant to stop urine and odors from soaking into the concrete, so it could work the opposite way as well: lock odors into the concrete so they don’t get out. Also, there are products advertised as creating a “vapor barrier” on the concrete for moisture protection, but that might work as an odor barrier as well. Installing another type of flooring over the concrete is another way to create a vapor barrier. Good luck!
Source: Creto – Permanently Stop Urine Smell In Concrete
Source: W. R. MeDows – Concrete Vepor Barriers