Removing Odors From a Stinky House

Do's and Don'ts

OdorXit's Real Estate Page

This page is specifically geared to the solving the odor problems encountered by
People Who Remove Odors from a House

Real Estate Rehabbers, Investors, Wholesalers and Home Buyers

Why are you here?

Lets face it, you are here because you have an odor problem with a current property or one you are considering acquiring or even the one you live in. In the past you have tried all the home remedies like bleach, ammonia, TSP, vinegar, various sealers, tomato juice (huh?) and even the other odor elimination products only to find that on the next hot and humid day the smell returned.

Good News & Bad News

The good news is that OdorXit is capable of solving the kind of odor problems house buyers and sellers run into permanently (or at lease until the area is re contaminated). The bad news is that OdorXit is not a magic wand or a silver bullet. You will have to invest a little time and effort to learn how to use OdorXit, acquire the appropriate tools to apply it properly and then actually use it properly. The situation is: most serious excrement contamination problems that took weeks if not years to accumulate. Expecting to squirt some stuff at the contamination one time and fix the problem it simply not a realistic expectation. Other non-excrement odor problems may not be as unpleasant but many are just as difficult to remove.

Keys To The Kingdom

The key to solving all odor problems is to understand what you are dealing with. Hopefully this document will help you to understand your odor problems and their solutions.

Starting with: If getting rid of the really tough odors was easy, everyone would be doing it successfully. Just ask your carpet cleaning professional. Most will not even talk about removing cat urine or spray odors from a carpet. This is because removing cat urine odor generally can not be done in 10 minutes (which is all most carpet cleaning people are willing to spend on the problem). And they certainly won't guarantee that they will or can get 100% of the odor out. Now you can.

Home Remedies and Urine

Home remedies are simply not made of the right stuff to eliminate urine odors. The urine residue that causes most of the really bad odor on humid days is a water soluble and extremely hygroscopic urea salt (its simplest form is CO(NH2)2). It can actually suck moisture right out of the air. When urea salt becomes damp, it reacts with its surroundings and produces a gas called mercaptan (A sulfur-containing organic compound with the general formula RSH where R is any carbon based radical, S is sulphur and H is hydrogen. The 2 carbon version (ethyl mercaptan) C2H5 SH.) is the smell that is added to natural gas and propane so that we can smell even a small gas leak, The larger carbon versions are what we associate with a urine contamination.

Products like bleach, ammonia, and vinegar do nothing to alter the urea salt. They can dissolve some of the urea salt if they are mixed with water, but water, especially when mixed with detergent or TSP , does much better. Once the soluble urea salt is dissolved, the solution must be removed so that it will not make the contaminated area larger and more deeply imbedded in the cracks and pours of the flooring.

Bleach will often lighten the stains but does not react with the urea salt. Mixing bleach and ammonia, even in small quantities, produces free chlorine gas that can and will severely burn your eyes, nose and lungs. Mixing chlorine bleach with fresh urine can be very dangerous because as the urine dries it gives off ammonia gas which when mixed with bleach releases chlorine gas. Enzyme products produce small amounts of ammonia gas as a byproduct of their reaction with urea salt. If there is any bleach in the area, the reaction will be the same.

Some other notes on using bleach. Bleach is formulated to clean and whiten clothing. In order to attain that goal, many other chemicals are added. Eliminating urine odor is not among the goals. If you are using the bleach for a disinfectant, you would be far better off to use swimming pool liquid chlorine shock. It is much more concentrated, and is not mixed with chemicals for laundry use.

Finally, do not use OdorXit in combination with chlorine or oxygen based bleach products. They both oxidize the organic salts and oils in OdorXit, making them ineffective.

Sealing and Painting Floors

Sealers are intended to block stains on walls from bleeding through and staining new paint applied to a wall. They are not designed to seal or block gasses (odors) from escaping or passing through. Some but not most paints do produce a continuous membrane finish that are not gas permeable, but considering that only one of many sides of an object like a piece of drywall or flooring is being sealed (painted), this approach offers limited odor control and success. In fact, the reason they work when they do is they block the water from getting to the urea salt, which blocking the catalytic reaction that produces the gas.

Fire and tobacco smoke damage are the obvious exceptions. But even long term contamination of walls and ceiling with tobacco smoke can be sealed in only after the majority of the tobacco tars (the yellow stuff) has been washed away with TSP . (OdorXit Concentrate is ineffective against most smoke odors unless it is mixed with TSP or used after TSP has been used. Even then, it does not eliminate the odor completely but does reduces the odor substantially).

Sealing urine odors into flooring can work on sheet flooring but careful analyses of what is actually happening reveals some serious flaws in the practice. Sealing sheet flooring actually reduces the amount of water and water vapor getting to the urea salt so that the salt does not produce the mercaptan gas. However, when the floor is put back into service small movements of the surface caused by occupant traffic and furniture will cause the sealers to crack and leak water vapor in and the evil mercaptan out. The cracks are large enough to allow water vapor in and mercaptan gas to escape, but too small to allow OdorXit and water liquid to get in to work on the urea salt. Further, floor boards have 6 sides. Sealing one side is not enough to do the job.

Using sealers or paint to seal concrete floors is a bit more effective but most sealers and paint are gas permeable. Additionally scratches and wear spots in the sealer or paint will cause mercaptan gas to leak past the "seal", again, creating the problem mentioned above.

Heavily contaminated wood and concrete flooring present yet another problem. When the urea salt gets wet from water drawn from the bottom of the wood or concrete, the gas produced can and will actually lift sealers and paint off the floor. When these blisters burst, the odor returns.

Removing the bulk of the problem

Shampooing (extracting) a carpet contaminated with urine will remove large amounts but not all of the urea salt. Even using a treatment called acid wash will not remove all of the urea salt though it can remove most of the salt and a great deal more dirt.

Washing flooring will also remove much of the urea salt, but flooring has an additional dimension which must be considered. Almost all wood flooring material uses a tongue and groove design to hold the boards together after being installed. The small cracks between adjacent boards allow the urine, while in liquid form, to run into the cracks and dry, leaving the dreaded urea salt in the cracks. Particle board and OSB flooring takes this problem to the limit with hundreds of tiny cracks per square inch. And though the cracks are rather small you have to count them all. Washing all of the soluble urea salt out of all these cracks and the pores in the wood is simply not going to happen regardless of how well you wash the flooring or what cleaning agent you use.

Concrete flooring, despite its hard appearance, is porous. If water can seep though a concrete wall or floor, you can bet that urine can and does the same. Concrete covered with tile presents an interesting problem because there are gaps between the tile and cavities between the tile and the concrete. These gaps and cavities can and will harbor large amounts of odor causing material.

Finally, because it takes very little urea salt to produce large amounts of mercaptan (the odor), additional treatment alternatives must be considered.

Additional Treatment with OdorXit

The additional treatment is OdorXit. When OdorXit comes in contact with urea salt, it changes the urea into another salt that does not produce mercaptan. Because OdorXit is a liquid, like urine, it can and does get into all the places where the urine has gone. But remember, the urine has had days or weeks and often months or years to get to all the really hidden places. By force of knowledge and volume of OdorXit, you and OdorXit can get to those same places much faster.

OdorXit solution can be applied to carpet with a carpet shampoo machine or an extractor or it can be poured on and rolled into the carpet. Spraying OdorXit onto carpeting is not very effective except in very small areas with heavy spraying.

OdorXit can and should be sprayed on to any hard surfaces A trigger sprayer works well enough on small areas but a tank type sprayer is required for larger areas. DO NOT USE SPRAYERS THAT HAVE BEEN USED FOR BUG POISON OR YARD CHEMICALS FOR ODORXIT! Get a new one.

The object is to get the OdorXit solution in physical contact with all of the urea salt. Any urea salt left in its original form will continue to produce mercaptan in amounts proportional to the amount of untreated urea salt (too much).

Now comes the question; Why mess around with removing the dirt and urea salts in the first place if OdorXit can and does neutralize it? The answer is: urea salt is extremely hygroscopic even after OdorXit has modified it. If left in the carpet or flooring every time the weather gets a little humid the affected area will become wet regardless of whether is stinks.

Step by Step Recovery of Urine Contaminated Carpeting

Recovering urine contaminated carpeting is the most complex odor elimination problem real estate investors and rehabbers and home owners are likely to face. Taking a step by step approach is by far the best. The steps include:

1. Determine if the carpet is worth saving. If replacing the carpet, padding and installation is worth less than the materials, recovery time and effort, and the lost rent to remove the odor, trash the carpet, padding and tack strips, decontaminate the flooring and install new padding and carpet so you can move on with the rehab. New carpet will make the property easier to rent or sell and in the case of rental, could encourage the tenant to take better care of your property and stay longer.
2. Assuming the carpet is worth saving, clean the carpet with a good quality carpet machine or have the carpet cleaned professionally. If you clean it yourself, you can add 2 or 3 ounces of OdorXit to each batch of carpet shampoo. If you have it professionally cleaned, most pros will not let you add anything to their shampoo machine. In that case, just come in with your own machine and apply OdorXit mixed with Hoover or Sears carpet cleaner while the carpet is still damp.
3. The next day, air out the treated area to flush any remaining OdorXit or carpet shampoo smells then close the area. Check for urine smell especially in the corners for cats, in the middle of the carpet for dog urine. If there is a slight odor, retreat just the area with OdorXit and water 2-3 oz per gallon. If the odor is stronger or persists, go to step 4.
4. With heavier carpet contamination it will be necessary to inspect the back of the carpet in the areas that continue to smell like urine. The problem area can be identified easily from the back because there will be a yellow to dark brown patch of stain on the back of the carpet. Cut out the padding plus 6 to 12 inches that match the stain on the carpet. Wash the floor and spray it and the back of the carpet thoroughly with a solution of OdorXit and water (4 ounces per gallon of water). Do not allow the carpet to lay on the wet flooring. It will soak up the OdorXit that should be seeping into the nooks and crannies in the flooring.
5. The next day, air out the treated area again and check for urine smells. Often you will find new spots as the overall level of contamination falls. If new areas are found go to step 4. If the area seems to be free of odor, close the area and check it the next day. If the weather is cool or cold, heat the area to at least 75 degrees F in order to promote the creation of odor if it has not all been eliminated. Again go to step 4 if more areas are found.
6. Now that you have successfully eliminated the odor, cut out new pieces of compatible carpet padding and tape it into place with 2 inch duct tape. Put the carpet back and stretch it over the tack stripping.

Step by Step Flooring Recovery

Recovering flooring from urine contamination is relatively simple by comparison to carpeting.

1. Remove all dirt, remnants of padding, old linoleum, carpeting, and loose paint by what ever means is appropriate for the flooring in question. This could include anything from simply running a shop vacuum over the floor, to a long handled ice scrapper and a shovel. Don't gasp, I have used both and others too! Don't forget to clean out the floor mounted heating and cold air ducts.
2. Wash the floor with Spic-N-Span or Tri-Sodium Phosphate (containing phosphates not the PC version. People in NY and CA among others states will have to acquire these products out of state). Mix the TSP 1/2 cup per gallon of hot water and spread or spray it on the floor. If you scrub the floor, only do it along the length of the boards, not across them. After 2 to 5 minutes vacuum up the spent TSP/Spic-N-Span and rinse with fresh water and vacuum again. Let the floor dry over night without fans. If there are spots of white powder on the floor re wash and rinse the area. If there are black sticky spots, you should seriously consider cutting that area of wood out. It is and will continue to rot. Anywhere you remove wood, clean, rinse and treat the wood underneath.
3. Spray the entire floor with OdorXit solution (4 ounces per gallon of water) so that it is wet and stays wet for 15 to 20 minutes, especially in the stained areas. Also spray under the moldings and tack strip, up the wall at least 1 foot and in any floor mounted duct work. If the floor boards have holes or if there are cracks in or between the boards, spray OdorXit solution directly into the holes and cracks.
4. The next day air out the treated area and check for urine smells and damp spots. If there are damp spots read about the treatment of extreme cases. If there are areas that are dry but still smell of urine, re-spray and cover the wet area with a piece of plastic. This will retard the evaporation of the OdorXit solution and give it more time to soak into the same areas the urine soaked into. If the smell still persists, refer to extreme cases or call the OdorXit Help line at 1877-ODORXIT.

Extreme Flooring Cases

Though personal observation of local properties and via customers requests for help on the OdorXit help line, we have seen and/or heard about flooring that was heavily contaminated with urea salt. Some were just stained black, while others, after being repeatedly washed with a variety of detergents and completely dried, would become wet and sticky again after a few hours from the hygroscopic action of the remaining urea salt. Now, we are talking about really contaminated flooring!

Though these extreme cases are more or less rare, more aggressive treatment was indicated.

More aggressive treatment in one case included sanding the surface of the area that was black and drilling a series of small holes through the hardwood flooring. The combination of the two removed the floor's finish and the holes provided a path for OdorXit to get to and neutralize the urea that had soaked into the surface and ran between and under the floor boards.

In another case more aggressive treatment included removing the most heavily contaminated part of the flooring. This revealed that the rafters and ceiling below the removed flooring was also heavily contaminated. Treating these newly exposed areas with OdorXit finally eliminated the odor problem.

Extreme Example 1

Extreme Example 2

Extreme Example 3

Cats, both male and female, neutered or whole, are capable of scent marking their territory. Neutering does not remove the scent gland, it may in some cases reduce the desire to scent mark . De-clawed cats are generally more likely to scent mark than fully armed cats. Dogs scent mark as well, but mostly they do it outside on every tree, fire plug and lamp post. So as far a interior rehabbing is concerned scent spraying is limited to cats and smaller exotic pets like ferrets.

Eliminating scent spray odors is relative easy provided that you have not painted over the area and you can find all of the involved areas. The black light approach works about 70% of the time based on the type and amount of phosphor in the animals diet. The black light will cause these phosphor salts to light up as a pale yellowish green mark that looks like it was applied with a squirt gun. Anywhere you find one of these marks, stick a thumb tack 2 inches above the mark so you can find them after you wash and rinse the area with TSP.

Mix up a 16 ounce trigger spray bottle of OdorXit Concentrate with 1 ounce of Concentrate and 15 ounces of water. Spray the marked areas with 2 to 4 pumps of product and let it dry naturally. These scent marks often take 2 to 5 applications over as many days to remove all the odor.

Places to find scent spray include: walls, doors, door frames, window frames, outside door thresholds, entrance ways, above and behind kitchen cabinets, behind baseboards and door trim. The unpainted bottom of wood doors are a very popular place for scent spray to hide. Most can be successfully treated with the 1:15 mixture, but often it is actually more cost effective to replace trim and often doors.

Extreme Example 4

Mold and Mildew

Mold and mildew are both a result of water invading a dark space and providing an environment where mold and mildew can grow. Getting rid of the water is the first step in solving this problem.

Once the water has been removed the mold will stop growing but when the mold fungus goes into its "dormant" state, it begins to spray spores into the air in an effort to procreate and relocate. The solution to the problem has recently become incredibly simple.

Cchlorine dioxide kills mold fungus and mold spores too. OdoOdorXit's Air Quality Manager (AQM) produces Chlorine Dioxide and should be used in a room up to 1000 to 2000 sqft basement or celler or crawl space in 1 to 5 days depending on several factors. There are 2 versions of the product (both produce the same quantity of gas, just at different rates. The Quick Release version produces all its gas in just 24 hours. The Extended release version takes 20 to 30 days.

The Quick version would seem to be a rehabbers dream except that during the 24 hour treatment period you must not be in the house being treated. Though the Extended release version releases gas for 20 to 30 days, it normally only takes 2 to 5 days to clear an open basement completely which gives you 15+ days to treat a second house or another area in the same house and you can be working in the area being treated. Using a small fan to circulate the air in the area being treated helps the process a lot. Refer to the ClO₂ section of this web site for more information on product sizing and application.

Recovering Refrigerators

If you are providing your tenants with a refrigerator, you have a special odor problem. As an example, how many refrigerators have you thrown out because a tenant left food to spoil inside a turned off unit?

To save the refrigerator, wash out the interior of the refrigerator with hot detergent water. Then spray OdorXit solution (1 ounce per quart of water) on the entire interior, concentrating on the places you can not easily scrub, the hole where the refrigerant tubes come in the back, shelf mounting brackets and the door gaskets, the door shelves and all around the freezer.

The next day the refrigerator will be ready for service.

Odors From Duct Work

What do you do about the smell of the garbage and pet urine that accumulates in floor mounted heating ducts?

Simply cleaning out the heat and cold air ducts often does not get rid of the smell that it produces by the trash, food, urine, and other material that finds its way into the duct work.

Cleaning is essential, but afterwards, spray OdorXit as far back into the duct as you can reach with the sprayer you are using. Pay particular attention to the joints in the ducts because they contain much of the material causing the smell. Don't forget the grates. Cleaning and painting them will often not fix the problem.

If the duct work is not accessible, it may be worth the expense to have them professionally cleaned but not sealed. After they have been cleaned, spray them with OdorXit Concentrate 30:1 to eliminate the remaining odors.

Urine Splash in Bathrooms

The main issue with urine splash in bathrooms is that if the urine has not dried yet, it is easier and cheaper to wash it off with detergent and water. OdorXit is designed to work on urine byproducts. Urine, while still wet, has not produced the urea salts that cause the odors that OdorXit neutralizes. If the urine has dried, spray OdorXit on after washing the area and the problem will be gone in a few hours.