I have light colored carpet. Can I find the locations and the extent(s) of the spots where my cat has urinated using a black light?
If not, is there any way, other than my nose, to locate ALL of these spots?
You could try to sniff them out.
I tried this in an attempt to locate cat spray and discovered a surprising large number of florescent spots. I have hard wood floors, so I cleaned every spot and eventually got the smelly one.
Apparently, most biological fluids will glow under a black light including old food dribblings.
As an owner of several duplexes I have had to deal with this more than I care to remember. Use a black light to make the spots show up, and saturate them with any of the enzyme-based urine deodorizers from your local pet supply store.
what’s a “black light”? is it UV?
Yes, a black light is UV. I suspect they can still be found in any reputable head shop.
Also, I don’t know where you’d come across one of these things, but we once moved into an apartment that had cat piss everywhere. Even after they came out and steam cleaned all the carpets, My mom (being a stickler for cleanliness) claimed she could still smell it.
They sent out another guy who had this metal pole that had a prod on the bottom of it and it would buzz wherever there was any remnants of piss. Maybe it was sensing the salt, or the acidity? I don’t know.
Steaming carpets actually sometimes makes the smell worse.I know of one aparetment where they had to replace the carpet after the new residents steamed the carpet themselves to rid the cat stink and … ooops!
i said it before, and i’ll say it again:
i hate cats.
It senses the balance in your checking account… 
I actually fell for this. The guy said that each time it buzzed, you needed an “injection” of some enzyme cleaning solution. That damn thing buzzed almost 200 times. I paid the bill.
But it worked.
Has to be a resistance measurement. They are supposed to ask if you have had your carpet cleaned recently.
Threadkiller: I thought conductivity. Same thing really.
BTW, I tried the black light - it didn’t work. So I just spread the enzyme cleaner everywhere. That’ll show 'em.
I’ve noticed that our locak discount store is selling a cat-piss light. So they’re not such a rare item anymore. Maybe the black light wasn’t quite the right thing?
Why does your cat use a black light while urinating?
For the enzyme cleaner to work you really need to saturate the spot, so unless you bought it by the gallons it probably won’t do you much good to spread it everywhere. In fact you’ll need to put the solution not only on the carpet but directly on the padding, or better yet just throw the padding away and replace it - it’s cheap. Finally you may even need to saturate the concrete slab, subfloor, carpet tack strips, and anything else the urine may have soaked into. It’s a real mess to clean up.