I rented a Rug Doctor do clean my own rugs instead of hiring outside help. I am a little concerned about the cats walking on the moist carpet when I am done. I am using the Oxy-Clean Rug Doctor solution and the MSDS form that came with it [ you can see it in the link] states that it is quite innoccuous. So should I worry at all?
Or should I just keep the cats in the basement over night? Even though they will hate us after…
We have two cats who are twenty years old, and a bunch of youngsters. We use steam-cleaning chemicals in our carpet several times a year, and none of our cats ever seem to suffer from it. They don’t like walking on damp carpet, but I haven’t seen any signs of illness.
This is the exact reason MSDSs were created, to answer such questions.
This is a much more authoritative answer than what you will get off a random message board (even one as good as this)
>This is the exact reason MSDSs were created, to answer such questions.
I don’t think it is. I think MSDSs were created to answer questions about toxicology and other hazards for humans.
Cats evolved eating things that were, just a second ago, running around. They have very poor tolerance for a variety of toxins, apparently because things that were just running around almost never have toxic ingredients. So it’s good to be cautious. I am going to guess that popular rug treatments that permanently hurt cats, though, would have been noticed already.
Cats also strongly dislike chemicals in the class of compounds known as turpenes. This class of compounds includes the substances in pine and citrus that give them their characteristic smell, which humans generally find pleasant and refreshing and associate with cleanliness. Turpentine is either a member of this class or is closely related to it (I don’t remember which). There are several cleaning products introduced within the last few years that are good at cutting grease but are also water soluble and pretty harmless to septic systems and the environment, based on turpenes.
AFAIK the dislike cats have for these is esthetic on their part and doesn’t represent a hazard. And you’re probably not going to be happy choosing your cleaning products on the basis of what cats think smells nice - for example, they are very fond of earwax and of motor oil.
At least they like mint.