I am having some trouble with my cat who seems to think is a good idea to pee on my room. Poor thing is being bullied by a neighbour cat, so his behaviour is understandable. To help with the clean up I bought a black light lantern. It has a few leds. But… when I turned all the lights in my room off, I was expecting to see the pee marks on the place where Willy peed. And there is nothing. There are a few things that glow, such as some pieces of paper and books, but… my teeth don’t, for instance (and I have real teeth, and they are in a good state). At least where I have seen more things should glow… like my teeth, for instance. My guitar, interestingly, is black, but turns into a gorgeous shade of green when lit by the lantern.
May I have been scammed with this purchase? Could it be that what I bought is not really a black light? On that MTV show room raiders the girls would inspect the guy’s room using a black light, and they were able to see… well, sperm stains all over their sheets, sometimes. I thought the effect would be the same for cat pee.
If you want to test the light, use some currency (assuming you’re in the US). Use a recent bill that’s five dollars or higher.
Looking online, I see some sources that say urine doesn’t reflect UV light as well as other body fluids.
Would a bottle of spray luminol help much? Also to tell if your room is a crime scene!
Get an enzymatic cleaner in the meantime to clean it up.
Some of that semen could be saliva.
in my experience, cat’s pee does fluoresce, but very weakly.
You need a very strong UV source, or a pitch-black room to see it.
1)Look at it with your cell phone or other digital camera, most of them will show you an IR source. You can test this by pointing your TV remote at it.
2)It’s IR not UV (sorry, just thought of that while I was typing #1).
3)Regarding the glowing sheets thing, that one always bugs me. People go into hotel rooms with those lights and say "OMG there’s sperm (actually semen) everywhere. That’s almost for sure not the case since laundry detergent glows very, very brightly. When I was in college one of the popular things to do was to paint the walls (graffiti style) with laundry detergent. You couldn’t see at all during the day, but break out the black lights at after dark and it looks like a night club. I can’t say for sure if semen glows since I’ve never tried it, but detergent does. I’d put money on most glowing spots on sheets/comforters/clothes being leftover detergent rather then semen.
ETA, if you use have a TiVo, it uses RF not IR so you have to test if with the volume button which sends an IR signal since that signal doesn’t go to the TiVo box.
Be aware that “glows under UV light” usually means “glows at this specific range of wavelengths of UV light” and UV LEDsdon’t put out the same range at power as UV fluorescents.
Joey P gave me an idea. I am now looking through my phone. The result is much stronger - now the AC remote control glows on a shade of pink… Interesting.
I was wrong about something earlier, I didn’t realize that a black light was UV, I really thought it was IR.
Remote controls use IR and I know most digital cameras will display IR through false/pseudo coloring. I’m not sure how they react to UV lights.
Interesting factoid:The way I learned this is because TiVos will lock up (or pretend to lock up) in the presence of another IR signal. The most common cause is another remote sending out a signal (TiVo (at least the series 2) won’t respond while another remote is sending codes to another device). The trick on the TiVo forums, because we got this question a lot, was to use a digital camera to scan the room for stray IR signals. The culprit was almost always a remote stuck between couch cushions or in a pile of magazines and it was really easy to find this way.
I ended up turning this into some really interesting photography by putting IR or UV lenses on my DSLR and capturing only those wavelengths. Taking a picture on a bright sunny day with a IR filter makes for some interesting pictures.
(Not my picture, I just went looking for an IR picture with lots of leaves and grass, they reflect a ton of IR for some reason).
Cat urine fluoresces fine when using the right light. The only bulbs I’ve seen that work correctly for your use are the bar-shaped ones. I’ve used the LED kind and don’t find they work as well. You also have to be fairly close to the stain for best detection, say a foot. In this link, I have used the 10.5" one and it worked fine, turns out old vomit stains fluoresce as well, but not as brightly as urine.
Tested it on my credit card. Now I know the black light is legit (and so is my card). Now I am noticing how some materials glow differently under the light. Thank you all! I think that it will be cheaper to buy a new backpack rather than buying lights until I find the one that works for what I need (cat pee detection). SeaDragonTattoo, I can’t open your link! :c
Interesting factoid: Some movie theatres now have IR floodlights that will, in theory, blind any cameras of people who try to record the movie there. Interestingly enough the rear camera of the iPhone does not detect IR light.
Another interesting factoid. Tonic water fluoresces under black light. So use it when you’re making jello brains or jello shooters for your next Halloween party.
Maybe an Amazon link will work for you? If not, sorry! I’m not sure what to search for that will work here and in Brazil. Anyway, good luck. And maybe put a litter box in your room if your kitty doesn’t want to go outside much any more?