There is something that I’ve been struggling with as a dog owner. For the last decade we had a beloved hound who was very inconsistent with her potty habits. She’d go months or years with no accidents in the house, and then she’d go months peeing in the house. She always only peed in one corner of one room. We did everything to take care of her (vet checks and training) and take care of the carpet, and she’s no longer with us now so that’s not what I need advice on.
We have a new dog again and we’re house training her. When she pees in the house, she goes in the same place the other dog did. We clean up the spot with enzymatic cleaner and then spot shampoo the rug. My concern is that the enzymatic cleaners all say to really soak the carpet and spray it enough that the cleaner soaks into the carpet pad underneath. This is logical to me - the urine soaks into the pad, so the cleaner needs to also. My worry, though, is that it’s hard to tell if you’ve put enough cleaner down so we’re likely to drench it so much that the subfloor gets wet too.
Is there a technique for soaking the carpet and pad but not the subfloor?
I also worry that by soaking the pad, it will take too long to dry and will mold. And because it’s under the carpet we’d never know. Thoughts?
Honestly, the pee probably soaked through the pad too and down to the sub floor. Your best bet may be to pull up the carpet in the room, paint the sub floor with Killz to get rid of any residual from there and then replace the pad and carpet. If that’s too expensive you could try and treat and clean the pad while its up too and the replace the old carpet and pad though it may not go down as easily the second time.
This. The pee has already soaked through the subfloor. I’d pull the carpet, pad, and replace the subfloor in that area. While the subfloor is up, I’d paint the joists with a few coats of Killz.
Yikes, that will make my husband happy. At one point he was so frustrated that he said we should remove the carpet, pad AND subfloor. Not replace it, just remove it. And walk around on the joists, I assume. But he says stuff like that when he’s frustrated.
We have replaced the carpet and pad at one point, but not the subfloor.
If that’s what it takes, I think I’ll take another shot at trying to convince him to replace that part of the floor with linoleum or something that’s easier to clean. The area is in the high-traffic spot between the garage door, the back sliding glass door and the entry into the kitchen anyway, so it makes sense.
Another question, don’t they make carpeting that has a non-porous bottom layer so that liquids don’t seep down into the pad?