How urine contamination builds up
Unlike a spill, urine contamination is usually the result of months or years of repeated accidents. It often follows illness, incontinence, dementia, a person living alone without enough help, or a tenant who left a unit in poor condition. By the time someone calls us, the odor has usually outlasted every carpet cleaning and air freshener tried.
None of this calls for embarrassment. These situations are common, and we treat the home and the people connected to it with the same discretion we'd want for our own families.
Where it ends up
Urine soaks downward and outward. On carpet it moves through the fibers into the pad, then into the subfloor, and it spreads along the tack strip and under baseboards. In bathrooms it collects at the base of the toilet, in grout and behind the flange. On furniture it reaches the foam and frame, not just the fabric.
- Carpet, pad and the tack strip around the room's edges
- Plywood or OSB subfloor and, in older homes, hardwood under carpet
- Baseboards and the bottom few inches of drywall
- Mattresses, box springs, recliners and lift chairs
- Toilet bases, grout, vanity cabinets and bathroom flooring
- Wheelchairs, walkers and other mobility aids
- Car and van seats, carpet and floor mats
- Public restrooms and patient rooms in care or healthcare settings
Finding what you can't see
The first part of the job is mapping. We look and smell for the affected areas, check the backing of carpet, pull back corners where needed and look at the subfloor and trim. Stains on top often don't line up with the contamination underneath, so we don't rely on the surface alone.
That mapping is also how we explain the scope to you before any work starts: which rooms, which materials and what we expect to remove.
Removal, cleaning and odor work
- Remove saturated materials Soaked carpet pad, tack strip, baseboards or mattress components are cut out, bagged and taken away. This is where most of the odor lives.
- Clean the subfloor and framing Exposed subfloor and surfaces are cleaned to break down residue, using enzyme-based cleaners where they suit the material, then disinfected with EPA-registered products according to the label.
- Address stubborn areas Where a subfloor is still holding odor after cleaning, sealing it with an odor-blocking primer before new flooring goes down is a common next step.
- Treat the air last Deodorizing equipment can help once the source is gone. It does not replace removing contaminated material, and we won't use it as a shortcut.
A note on ozone and odor claims
You may hear that an ozone machine will get rid of urine odor. EPA says ozone may mask odors but there is little scientific support that it removes them, and that high-concentration ozone is only for unoccupied spaces with no people or pets present. We start with source removal, and if ozone is used at all, it is only in a closed-off space that no people or pets enter until it has been ventilated. See our page on odor removal for more.
Before your appointment, and who else may need to help
- Avoid steam cleaning carpet; heat and moisture can reactivate odor and spread it
- If someone is still living in the home, let us know about mobility needs so we can plan the order of rooms
- Set aside anything you want to keep and tell us about it
- Replacing carpet, flooring or drywall after removal is work for a flooring contractor or general contractor
- A leaking toilet or drain line that's adding to the problem should go to a plumber
- If pets are part of the picture, our pet urine odor removal page covers the differences