How to clean up your cat’s urine or faeces in the home

IF a cat’s urine or faeces is not cleaned-up thoroughly, the cat is likely to go again in the same spot. Smell prompts re-use. One should clean up when the cat is not in the room, otherwise the cat thinks its mark gets attention. Consider redecorating after cleaning up if the spraying has been going on for a long time.

Never use bleaches or disinfectants. They smell like urine to a cat, so does anything pine, rose or lemon scented. Disinfectants that go cloudy are poisonous to cats.

Use warm water with 10 per cent solution of biological washing liquid or powder. Alternatively use one tablespoon of Napisan and one tablespoon of biological washing powder to one pint of water. Then rinse the area thoroughly in cold water and let it dry or dry it with a hair dryer if time presses.

Next spray or apply some other way surgical spirit. Use a nail brush to get this into fabric and crevices. This gets rid of the fatty residues that prompt a cat to top up his own marks. Dry this off completely.

If using Feliway, wait 24 hours after using surgical spirit because it interferes with the Feliway. If the cat has access to this area during the 24 hours, rig up some cling film on the area and use Feliway on this. After 24 hours take it off and spray on it directly.

Any curtains that have been sprayed with urine should be sent to the dry cleaners and linen machine washed. With moveable mats and small carpets get these cleaned somehow if you can or throw away. Before putting cleaned mats back use the white cloth or Feliway on the previously soiled area of the mat.

Do not try to save money on cleaning because in the long run the more thorough one is the cheaper it all will be. A spraying/middening cat can cause a lot of grief and nothing is too much to stop it early on.

When cleaning furniture and carpets, patch-test on a small area in case the biological washing liquid or surgical spirit removes dyes from carpets or polish from furniture.

If carpet has had urine in it for a long time, consider replacing it rather than shampooing.

The edge where the skirting board meets laminating flooring will have a pool of spray urine if the site has been used repeatedly.Use a silicon sealant between the two. Then cover with heavy varnish of the sort used to varnish boats to make a barrier between the sprayed urine pool area and the outside world.

The intersection between tiles collects a pool. Clean the tiles – scrub in the intersection – then put the heavy boat varnish in the intersection or even over all the tile surface as well. 

With cement floors, wash and clean with a biological cleaner first and let dry out for two to three weeks. If the urine marking has gone on for ages, paint concrete floor with heavy paint as a sealant. Whether painting or not, put a sheet of heavy duty polythene – the sort builders mix concrete on – under the carpet underlay before putting on clean carpet. When the area is thoroughly cleaned and completely dry, spray with Feliway daily.

If you have any questions, please write to me at connie-pets@euroweeklynews.com  I’ll be happy to help.