When you share your home with pets, you have to accept that urine accidents will happen occasionally, even with the most well-behaved animals. If you catch a fresh accident, you can blot it up and use an enzyme cleaner to get out the stain and odor. Dealing with old accidents that you can't see is a different problem. This often requires the help of a professional pet stain removal and cleaning cleaner to banish the odor. Here's how you can get rid of pet urine odor in your carpet.

Find The Source Of The Odor

You may detect the odor of urine in your home but finding its source can be difficult. The odor may remain after cleaning a room because you have to find the exact spot and apply cleaners to remove it. A black light is often useful for this task since urine will glow in a black light. However, other biological fluids will glow too, including some cleaning products that contain bacteria to break down urine. Still, if you can't find the places where your pet has urinated because the spot is dry, using a black light can help you narrow down the places you need to clean.

Use The Right Cleaning Products

If you're not careful, you can set the urine stain by using the wrong cleaners. More likely, you'll use a product and it won't have any effect. To get rid of urine odors and stains, you have to break down the urine. This can be accomplished with enzyme cleaners and oxygen-based cleaners. Always test them on the carpet first because oxygen cleaners can cause fibers to fade.

Deep Clean The Carpet

The problem with old pet stains is that they've had time to filter through the fibers down to the carpet pad. Cleaning the surface of the carpet won't get rid of the odor. Also, animals tend to use the same spot which further intensifies the odor and damage to the carpet and pad. The carpet needs to be deep cleaned so urine can be removed from the carpet and pad too. Soaking the carpet with a cleaning solution isn't the best idea because then you might have a mold problem if the area doesn't dry out fast enough. The best way to deal with old urine stains is to call a professional to deep clean the carpet and extract the water so the pad and fibers dry quickly. Let the carpet cleaner know your carpet has urine stains so they can use products to eliminate the stain and neutralize the odor.

Once your carpet is clean and your home smells fresh again, you may want to use the black light occasionally to check for new accidents so they can be cleaned up quickly. Having your carpets cleaned regularly is a good way to battle pet problems from urine and body odor so your guests won't be overwhelmed with odors that you've become accustomed to.