Easy question - probably

[ih303]

I bought quite a bit of products from TMF last year to deal with urine problems in my house - particularly in the summer when it's hot. I have had some small success, but have realized a non-professional using professional products in a consumer grade carpet cleaner is not going to give me the results I so desperately want.

I finally bit the bullet and hired a professional service to come clean my carpet, but although when they were done the carpet looked cleaner, the odor came back the next day. I had them come back and clean again, no change. At that point, they told me they could try again but it probably wouldn't make much difference. So I thanked them for trying and sent them along.

The idea in doing it myself was I could try different things repeatedly until I found something that worked. I wouldn't have to pay hundreds for repeated carpet cleaning, and I would have one more skill under my belt. Now, I just want the pee smell gone.

I'm not going to ask if I should stick with DIY or hire a professional - I've seen the wrath that tends to rain down on other DIYers on the forum for asking such ludicrous questions. So my question is, how do I find someone in my area (Utah County, UT) who uses TMF products and knows what they're doing?

Thanks in advance.

 

[brian3180]

Do you have an extractor or are you just pouring chemical on spots and crossing fingers?

 

[john martinez]

My guess is the pad has soaked up most of the urine and you haven't used enough urine remover to allow it to soak into the pad like the urine has before extraction

 

[keep it clean]

Pull up the carpet and check to see if its gotten through and soaked into the floor. If it has cleaning isnt going to cut it. Floor itself needs to be treated and sealed. You also need to target the urine. Anything missed will still be there. Baseboards, tackstrip, the floor itself. Humid days will activate it like a nasty air freshener.

 

[John Rockwood]

You could call the local supplier in your area so they can recommend a qualified cleaner.
Ask the cleaner about what can be done to correct your problem. If the cleaner says he can guarantee removal of the urine with his products with no explanation I would not use him.
A professional will go over your options depending on the amount of contamination and will try to educate you on the process.
I would not be stuck on TMF products. Every cleaner has their own products that they prefer.
I doubt that you could convince him to use your TMF products but you never know.

 

[ih303]

Thanks so much for the responses!

@brian3180 - I do not have an extractor but have been using a bissell big green carpet cleaner. My process has been to mix up a few gallons of Unchained USOR, saturate & soak the spots I've identified with a UV light, then use the big green to suck up as much moisture as I can. IMHO, that process actually did more for the urine odor than the professional cleaning.

Still, it's an ongoing process since we have three dogs which inevitably means the occasional pee spot. My original goal was to shell out for a professional cleaning maybe once a year but be able to do smaller spot treatments on my own in the meantime.

Unchained definitely works. I have not tried Pure O2 OSR, Black Label, Ultimate All Fiber Rinse, or Biopro 10k (the products that people seem to praise the most for urine treatment).

Q1: Do you guys think I'd have better results with any of these products?

Q2: Is the difference between me trying to DIY this and hiring a pro so big that it's not worth me doing?

Again, thanks in advance.

 

[OxiFreshGuy]

Just put a dehu in the room. Done.

 

[mrotto]

FJRST you need to understand the CLEANING and ODOR REMOVAL are two different chemistries. Cleaning products are designed to remove soil and do little to remove odor. Odor removal products are designed to eliminate odors and do little to remove soil.

SECOND you need to understand that to effectively remove odors you need to know where the source of the odor is. The reason this is critical is that if you think there are 5 spots but there are actually 8 what can happen is that you treat the 5 spots you know of and still smell the odor and think that the Odor Remover didnt work. Well it did, except that you are still smelling the 3 spots you were not aware of.

THIRD thing you need to know is that most Odor Removal products are enzymes and need time to work. As long as they are wet, they will continue to work. Once dry, the enzyme dies and is no longer effective.

FORTH thing you need to know is that you need to apply MORE than the pet did, so if the spot is 2 inches round you need to soak it to 3 inches round. That way you are putting more in than the pet so the Odor removal product can overwhelm the odor.

Too many people dont put up enough product and try to dry it too soon

 

[scrubb3d_Ed]

Do you have an extractor or are you just pouring chemical on spots and crossing fingers?

Unfortunately, having an extractor and using it properly will not always do the trick.