Make Eliminating Pet Stains and Odor Part of Your Spring Cleaning

She’s a cute little year-old Dachshund named Clara. She’s mostly varying shades of brown, a little darker on the top near the end. She lives in an old early 1900’s house on Connecticut Street. The house has wood floors and that’s a good thing because Clara is an excitable little pooch and she sometimes has accidents. Sometimes when there’s a knock at the front door she starts jumping up and down like some of the little dogs do and then she well….has a tendency to leak. As a matter of fact that’s the nickname that one of her owners calls her by: Leaky. They always keep paper towels handy.

Don Aslett is the founder of one of America’s largest cleaning firms. Raised on a potato farm in Idaho, he must have taken his mother’s advice about cleaning what’s behind his ears seriously because his cleaning and organizing books have sold over three million copies. He is the author of such tomes as “Clutter’s Last Stand: It’s Time to De-Junk Your Life” and his latest effort titled: “Weekend Makeover: Take Your Home From Messy to Magnificent in Only 48 Hours.” He has appeared on Oprah and has been featured in all of the women’s magazines. Recently he has come up with some commonsense tips to keep your home smelling fresh if you have a pet:

First of all, give that dog a bath to keep him from…smelling like a dog. In-between baths, you can give your dog a spritz of canine perfume, or use a spray on or wipe on bath replacement.

Buy a bed with a washable cover. Your pooch will spend a lot of his time there transferring his scent.

Like in the case of Leaky, no carpet is the best carpet. But if you do have carpet and pets, then the best type of carpet to get is one with synthetic fibers. One with an odor guard works best. Stay away from natural fibers like cotton and wool, as they absorb odors like a sponge. If you are laying new carpet, then get the padding with a moisture barrier.

Use a fluorescent light (available at pet stores) to identify the pet stains that you cannot normally see. Check in some of the hard to reach places because sometimes pets will go there to have an “accident.” Once you’ve identified the stains, then you can use several different types of products to remove them:

Odor neutralizers convert smelly molecules to less-smelly ones. Some are scented to help mask odors while they work. Odor encapsulators encase the smelly molecules, masking their odor.

Bacteria/enzyme digesters are good for getting out really entrenched odors. But because the surface that they work on has to be thoroughly wetted and left to dry, these products work slowly and must be used on water-safe surfaces. (I actually bought Leaky a bottle of Simple Solution Stain and Odor Remover for Christmas last year.)

Oxygenated stain and odor removers are good for removing old, set-in stains. They help with odor too, but are primarily designed for stains.

And a final word of wisdom from America’s #1 cleaning expert; don’t use ammonia based products to clean up pet stains. They smell just like what they’re supposed to be cleaning and can trigger your pet to have more accidents.