The Pee Mystery - Losing Braincells Over This!
Cat/kittens and their toilet behaviors
Rewind a few months, thinking back about a discord chat with @stickupboys when I told him we'd be fostering kittens instead of adopting one. I remember he sent me this GIF:
I told him we never had any issues with cats or kittens and their urine. If you keep a very close eye on them at the start of their lives, it's not that hard to avoid accidents. In our experience, one mishap, an immediate clean-up with a tissue or kitchen paper, and then adding that to the litter box and they get understand what the deal is.
To be fair, I totally expected this thing to be much more complicated with Mojo and Mochi, picked up from the streets, with no experience using a litterbox at all, but I was wrong, even with them it was just 1 pee to make them understand where to go to the toilet the next time.
All kittens fostered arrived here trained to use the litterbox so we didn't have any issues besides a little accident here and there when the parasites made them poop over the edge or three was a crowd in the litterbox.
The accident
So far so good, I proved @stickupboys wrong! Ha! That is until I went into the bedroom one evening after the door had been closed for a few hours and the kid was sleeping like a baby. The window had been open throughout the full day (as every day for at least a month now) since we added the mosquito net there. I need oxygen and I can't stand being in the room using air conditioning only. I much prefer fresh air, even if the air is not that cool, I can manage with a fan quite well.
So I only closed the blinds there when we were out as well as during the night because I don't trust the youth that hangs on these stairs one bit, I can totally see them throwing a burning cigarette inside while drunk causing a fire while the kid is sleeping there. And my workspace is below the window so I'm careful having that window open. So throughout the day the door as well as window are open while I use the fan to blow air through the room. So far so good until last week.
I walked into the room and I was blown away by the smell of cat piss, while the kittens were all inside there was a clean litter box in the bedroom only. Shit! It was almost midnight what great timing to find out. We had to put on the light to investigate and mop the floor, hoping it would be ok for now. It was ok to fall asleep but waking up was not that great, lol. The smell returned.
Throughout the day, everything was open and the smell went away, we both searched and searched in every corner, on every item in the room, the matrasses, etc, you name it. Every time when the door was closed for an hour and the blinds were down, the smell was unbearable! I went nuts, let me tell you. Like freaking out as now it was already 30 degrees throughout the day and you can only imagine how that adds to the smell!
Out of options
We have this bottle that breaks the enzymes of the pee if you put it on the spot pure, then remove the liquid and wait for a day to wipe it off. But this stuff only works if you put it on the spot pure and to be able to do this, you need the spot where they had the accident. I thought I found the spot twice going by Aki's nose when she was smelling for a bit too long to my liking on one place and decided to take my chances and use the cleaning stuff on that area. For a few hours at least I smelled the cleaning stuff instead of urine, lol.
The search continued
I had some laundry on the top bunk bed as well as clothes that I yet had to check later and went through every single sock and piece of laundry on there. Everything got sniffed thoroughly lol. The floor got mopped several times to make sure no spot was missed, and yet every time when the door had been closed for an hour, we'd open it to smell it again. So strong! How is it possible that we can't find this?
I swear I was losing brain cells over this mystery because while I was working in the room throughout the day, with the window open and a mosquito net in front of it, plus the door of the room not closed, I smelled nothing. Neither if we entered the room. The kittens smelled it every time they entered so at some point I tried to keep them out for a few days until this mystery was solved as I was afraid one would find the spot before we did and make it worse.
The weather made it worse
Imagine 30+ degrees Celcius and a cat urine smell, it's not nice. That's the understatement of the year! I already saw how this smell came from the mattress while there was no visible spot and we'd have to buy new mattresses soon to solve it. Then I realized that I read somewhere you can find these spots with UV light. Thanks to my friend G.oogle, I discovered this was correct, you just need a certain strength in light and then it will light up when you shine at the spot.
My boyfriend said it will be hard to find one because this is not the regular store item here, he said he was looking for it in the past and couldn't find it either. To my regret I saw online hits, taking weeks from China, some other stores here sold it as well but taking up to 5 business days to get it at home, and more expensive as well. I was not going to have this for 5 more days so we went to the animal stores in person to hear it was online only. As it was Friday, I might as well try to figure it out otherwise we'd buy a 3x more expensive UV light while the problem was solved already. Meanwhile, I tried using the UV light for nails I have (assuming it was not strong enough, but hey, at this point I was willing to try everything, haha) without any success.
A bright moment
My boyfriend was the one with this bright moment, he said what if it comes from outside and a cat has been spraying there in front of the bedroom window? I realized he may be right as Ginger (Mochi's redheaded cat friend who we call Ginger) had been sleeping in front of this window several days after Mochi was found dead. He may have marked this spot as his territory.
We removed the mosquito net, closed the window, and put on the air conditioner. He went outside to check if he could smell it over there and he said it was smelling as if it came from inside the room. A little disappointed at this point that he could not find it exactly but we decided to keep the window closed and have airco at night instead of fresh air. Guess what? In the morning, no cat pee smell! Guess I was lacking oxygen all along but sniffing up cat spray from outside, yuk!
I'm so happy he figured it out as we never once thought about this option as it didn't happen before. We went away most of the day today and came back without smelling anything, mystery solved! I hope we can properly remove it from that spot in front of our window, if it doesn't work right away I will just have to deal with it for a week or so while we wait for that lamp to arrive. So be it.
Have you ever had a similar situation? How did you solve it? Were you also losing brain cells over this mystery?
Lol, so happy that in this case it was a cat outside causing it, I seriously didn't know what to clean again after all these attempts. See I was right, no contemplating where to piss next :) lol
I can't imagine how frustrating it would have been for you guys to be smelling cat piss during those days. Does the smell not fade away over the days particularly if it's outside, or could you not give the spot a good scrub to get ride of the smell now you've found it? Either way, glad you sorted it out in the end, otherwise it would be a terrible to live in the room throughout summer!
It was so frustrating, indeed. I think I lost a few brain cells for real.
The smell was not there during the day when I had the door to the living room open as well as the window (with mosquito net in front of it) for some reason, then the smell didn't stick. As soon as we went out / put our daughter to sleep, I would close the blind behind the window and the smell would build up slowly over the course of an hour. But I never suspected this to come from outside until my boyfriend had this bright moment.
Glad he did, now we have the airco on and the window closed until we are sure the exact spot is cleaned and doesn't smell anymore.
And yes, I was imagining that while we couldn't find it, a full week of 30+ degrees and then this was quite stressing me out, lol.
Ah I have a lovely cat pee story. My parents had a few cats growing up and it was a full sized house so it also had a basement. My dad does electrician work so he’s got a lot of tools and storage things. The basement smelled worse than usual and that’s where the litter boxes are. We decided to clean them, wash and bleach the floor and get rid of it. The smell unfortunately continued still! This went on for a few weeks, we couldn’t find the source of the pee smell. My dad was pretty mad lol he’s a very clean guy especially with the animals.
He was getting ready for work one day and he needed an older tool so he opened one of the cabinets to get it and there was a container with black liquid in it. He was thinking what the hell is that grease or something? It turned out it was pee! We don’t know why one of the cats decided that they should pee in a damn plastic cup container instead of the litter box but sure enough they did and it sat there for so long that it turned black. It was disgusting! Lol.
Glad you found the source of the stink! You can probably use vinegar to get rid of it, and some water with a bit of dish soap. That should get rid of the smell and spray should hopefully keep it from coming back!