This is my annual attempt to safeguard myself against April Fool’s Day pranks. One year I believed that my pop station was changing to an all-polka format. Another year I believed Google was offering a dating service. (I still think a Google dating service is a GREAT IDEA.)
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So, hey, I’m now in charge of cleaning up the waste matter of three different species. Not only is there a MOUSE in my CAR, but a cat is peeing on anything soft we leave on the floor. At first we assumed New Cat was the peeing one, but then we remembered that Mouse (our 15-year-old female cat, and I hope this will not be confusing with the rodent-in-the-car I just mentioned) had a peeing problem a number of years ago when the two boy cats we had at the time were heckling her. Also, I looked it up online and found a ton of info (much of it totally useless, like that you should have had the cat neutered earlier, which, um, shoot, I left my time machine in my other pants), but it SOUNDS like Mouse is the one more LIKELY to be peeing from stress and upset and perhaps also as a territory thing, because New Cat seems totally unstressed about coming to live with us and eager to play/cuddle with Mouse, but Mouse seems pretty miffed.
Well. So we got a second litter box and we’re scooping daily and trying to give both cats lots of attention. Also, getting cat pee aroma out of cloth? Anyone? I tried soaking/washing in baking soda and it didn’t work, and if baking soda doesn’t work I am ALL OUT OF IDEAS. (I also tried vinegar.) (Next I think I will try FIRE.)
About the mouse in the car—I think I’ve only mentioned it on Twitter so here’s the summary: I found a bunch of food and a gnawed-through seat and a bunch of mouse droppings IN MY CAR. And to clarify: it was stuff like cornflakes, which even on the rare occasion we DO let the kids eat in the car, we don’t give them CORNFLAKES. Anyway, my dad looked it up online and found that this is a not-uncommon problem (!), and that it was important to UN-problem it before the mouse gnawed through $1500 worth of wires or something.
I got an electronic mouse trap that (1) can be around kids and non-mouse-sized pets, and (2) won’t ever leave a mouse caught and squirming in pain OMG. It has a green light that flashes when a mouse has been caught, so I keep checking it nervously/hopefully. So far nothing, but it’s only been 18 hours.
Let’s change the subject.
Look at this nice big pile of books I got for $4:
I like to get books from the library book sale to use for traveling (so I don’t have to worry about losing them, and so I can leave them behind when I’m done with them and not have to lug them home) and for keeping in my purse (so if they get all scrunched and destroyed it doesn’t matter). I like paperbacks best for this, but I did get one hardcover. The cool thing was that I went to the book sale hoping to find the wellness book by Andrew Weil (The New Girl mentioned it and it sounded good), and they ACTUALLY HAD IT. That’s so weird! Also weird: they didn’t have ONE SINGLE Stephen King book. They always have multiple copies of every paperback, but not ONE. What could have happened to them all? *eerie music*
We have 4 cats, and the only thing that I’ve found that gets rid of the cat urine odor is, believe it or not, Fabuloso. It’s a super cheap multi-cleaner that you can find at like Walmart or most dollar stores. We don’t have a target or costco, so not sure if they carry it. They just released a new kind that is Fabuloso with Oxy. I add about 1/4 cup to a load of laundry with the detergent and not only does it help remove stains, but NO CAT PEE SMELL!!
In high school, our rock station changed to country on April 1st. I thought it was a prank. It was NOT.
There are natural cleaners for cat pee at Petsmart. I can’t think of the brand right now.
We use Nature’s Miracle for the cat pee. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It does, however, work wonderfully on puke stains on your comforter, though.
I saw Google’s fake story today and had one second of “Wha?” before I realized.
At pet stores, you can get products specifically for cat pee that have enzymes that get rid of the urine and the smell quite nicely.
I’m tempted to say that you could solve the cat and the mouse problem by locking the cat in the van for the night, but then you would have to drive around in a van smelling like cat pee, which doesn’t seem like an improvement. :)
Cat pee is OF THE DEVIL. I know that they sell some anti-urine-smell stuff online, but I’m not sure how effective/caustic it is. I vote fire. It’s the only surefire (ha) way.
Also, I just pooped a little thinking about a mouse in my car. Mice don’t even gross me out! It’s just the…suddenness of their panicked little scampering that gets me.
My son got me before I was even awake this morning. I keep running “april fools april fools april fools” through my head today.
I’m sure you will get 8 zillion cat pee comments, but our experience of trying probably a dozen different cleaners led us to one miracle: It’s called Anti Icky Poo (seriously) and it was the only thing that worked for us.
We used Nature’s Miracle for when our dog was being house trained. Then, my sister’s cat, peed on our couches. For a WEEK while we were out of town. Now there’s some serious cat pee smell. What I did was take the couch cushions out of the covers and douse them with Nature’s Miracle and then let them dry and did it again. Then we had someone professional clean the couch and well, it still smelled like pee for a while. I have a really, really good sense of smell (I can tell if cooked hamburger has been refridgerated) so I recall a lingering smell every time we sat down for a couple of months. My husband couldn’t smell it though. I don’t smell it any more and luckily our cat is as good as gold and never thought the smell meant sure PISS HERE so we haven’t had any additional issues. So I’m rambling, sorry, to sum, Nature’s Miracle plus time.
I just remembered more about my mouse-in-the-car story (happened when I was in high school). We thought we had gotten rid of the mouse-in-the-car, and then I started smelling this horrible smell. Turns out, mice can be attracted to air-conditioning fluid (it’s sweet), so the mouse had crawled into the A/C tank and drowned in it. Then I smelled it’s little decomposing body and it was way gross. A bunch of stuff had to be replaced in the car.
So! Didn’t really want to be a downer and give you more stuff to worry about… but the more you know, right?
We’ve used nature’s miracle in the wash — and it seemed to work. Our most recent problem was the Minion and a territory dispute with the Queen. Sadly, the territory was my bed — and we’re still using the comforter without a hint of cat pee.
Another Nature’s Miracle fan here. When my former cats gots older, two of them developed problems that led to pretty frequent misses of the box, or entire misses of the room that the box was in. Nature’s Miracle worked the best and wasn’t hard on the color or texture of carpet or fabrics. I found that saturating the whatever with it and leaving it as wet as possible for as long as possible seemed to work the best. It comes in spray bottles and in gallon jugs at pet stores for sure. And I think I bought online a time or two from Dr. Foster and Smith.
i have a cat with a Peeing Problem too (MY CLOTHES. HE HAS PEED ON MY CLOTHES.) and i also swear by nature’s miracle. pour some of it into the wash (along w/your normal detergent) and it comes out like new. it’s an ACTUAL MIRACLE. they named it well.
I had a mouse in my car during college. It may or may not have had something to do with throwing trash (taco bell)into the backseat. Whatever. I opened the door to get in one day and…… there was a mouse on the driver’s seat. I immediately commenced screaming and jumping around in the middle of the street. Then I screamed some more, then I walked home. I had a trap in the car for a week or so but never caught him. I cleaned out the car, and never saw him again. I would periodically think of it while driving at night and would have to pull over and jump around some more. But 18 years later I no longer dump trash in my car. Also we had one in our pantry this winter break but…. I am still not ready to talk about that.
maybe you should put one of your cats in the car to find the mouse? I know my cat would love that! Good luck on catching said rodent and on getting rid of the stink. yuck, cat pee.
I am HORRIFIED by the creature in your car. This is a huge fear of mine — I parked on NYC streets for years and would make myself sick thinking of what might have found its way in, esp. when I parked near a mound of restaurant trash. Do you have any idea how it got in? (or is that a stupid question — like if I ever looked under my car would I see tons of access routes?). Now that you’re dealing with my nightmare, any preventative measures (in case you do find that time machine?)
CAT PEE! I have so much information on this. Our 9 year old had a peeing problem when Wife and I first moved in together and my (much younger) cat stressed her out merely by existing.
First for cleanup. Of the 8,372 products out there, Natures Miracle is the best brand that we tried.
http://www.naturemakesitwork.com/home/index.php
You really soak the fabric and let it air-dry. You can also dump some in the washer with washable fabrics.
Second, the prevention. Feliway. It is some cat happy-comfort hormone that comes in sprays (I never used) and plug-ins. We use the plug-in version and keep one by the litter boxes and one by the food bowls, and everything got So Much Better. They are kind of pricey in stores, but you can get the refills in 6-packs from amazon much cheaper. We change them monthly.
http://www.amazon.com/Feliway-48-Milliliter-Plug-Refills/dp/B000CPAV3O/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1270134118&sr=8-5
We also had her on anti-anxiety pills (I KNOW), which also seemed to help, but this particular cat was all kinds of crazy before the addition of other cats, so that is a measure not necessary for most people.
I seriously LOVE the Post-It note. That’s amazing.
We’ve had reasonably good luck with Nature’s Miracle. It works well on sheets, comforters, towels, clothing, etc. (sigh), but futons and mattresses? Only so-so. Maybe we didn’t let these get saturated enough?
Anne, thank you for mentioning Feliway. We’ve been thinking about that for our harried girl cat and it helps to hear testimonials. Our girl is only a few years old, but she’s a quiet and skittish sort. Which means bringing in the little spitfire always-wants-to-play male kitten was a Very Bad Idea (but he’s so cute!). A year later and she’s still terrorized by him. (She seems fine for most of the day, just haunted whenever she hears his bell — we belled him so he couldn’t sneak-attack her so often — and she really is terrorized when he wants to play.) A few months ago she started peeing around the house and we just sort of shrugged and increased our loads of laundry. (And locked her out of the two main rooms she peed in, the guest room and stepson’s room.)
However! We recently took her to the vet and she had blood in her urine. There were also some crystals, so it might just be a matter of changing her diet, but the vet thought it could also be a result of stress. Apparently cats have a tendency to some sort of nervous syndrome that messes up their bladders. Briefly (and sketchily, since I only know what I remember from last week’s phone call), the constant flood of adrenaline somehow irritates the nerves of the bladder and kitty ends up with swelling in her bladder (did he call it nephritis, maybe? but that’s kidneys, so maybe not). The vet’s first suggestion was more kitty litter boxes (# of boxes = # of cats in house + 1) and feliway plugins throughout the house. The next step would be to give our kitty a painkiller to stop the cycle of nervous inflammation. The final step would be an antianxiety drug, but he wanted to save this as a last option because it can take so long to titrate (get to the correct dosage) and take effect, plus it’s probably the most expensive option. Feliway is pretty expensive too, but now that we know the stress is causing physical damage? Seems like it might be worth the investment.
Good luck with this, Swistle. Coping with a peeing cat is really tedious, and really frustrating.
I have no cats and thus no practical experience with cat pee but in general, I’m a big fan of OxyClean. It does wonders for spills and stains and you can use it for laundry, carpet, dishes, etc. It is the ONLY thing that will get stains out of my teapot and cups.
I went to Petco (don’t know if you have them where you live) to buy Nature’s Miracle and the salesgirl told me Simple Solution worked better. It was a little cheaper, so I went with it. So far it has worked great for us. And I just had an 8 month old LARGE puppy (bernese mountain dog) have diarrhea ALL over my guest room. I cleaned by hand with Simple Solution and the carpet looked and smelled almost normal. A quick cleaning with my steam vac and the room is good as new. You can also use the Simple Solution in a carpet cleaning machine or in the laundry. Around $10 for a 32 oz. spray bottle.
Hey, that’s my website!
We use Dumb Cat spray, which you can find at petco. One of the benefits I like is that you can spray it on and then not have to wash it off with a steam cleaner or something. Clean mess, spray, go on with life. It also has a deterrant to make kitties not pee on that spot any more. It is SO FRUSTRATING when kitties pee because of upset, but you’re smart in the moves you’ve made. My oldest poops behind the cat genie to indicate that we have 12 hours to clean it thoroughly, and if we don’t, she will pee. Grr I want to just pop her in the cute little face!!
Mar- I remember the article my dad sent me had information about how mice can get in (ALL OVER THE PLACE, apparently), but I was in a horror coma and didn’t process it.
Oh, and I remember “keeping it clean” was supposed to be a deterrent, but HA HA HA HA HA! I mean, we don’t have food trash in there, but we are ALL UP on little toy wrappers and school papers and all kinds of wonderful nesting materials, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Are you sure it’s a mouse in your car? I had the same thing happen one time, put a trap in the car, and the trap disappeared, bait and all. Later, I saw a SQUIRREL running across the yard with the trap in its mouth, carrying it somewhere! [And it dropped the trap once and picked it back up, otherwise I would have worried that its little mouth was caught.] I never did figure out how it was getting into the car, but as soon as I got tidy and stopped leaving food/wrappers/crumbs, it stopped visiting. As far as I know. :-)
Another Nature’s Miracle fan, though I’ve recently switched to the XO stuff they sell at our local DG hardware store. I’ve never seen it elsewhere, but they’re online: http://www.xocorp.com/index.asp It’s worked AMAZINGLY – highly recommend.
And EEP about the carmouse. That would creep me out SO much. You are brave.
I recently tried to adopt a new cat into my family and it was a huge failure because our current, older kitty was a nervous wreck. It was personality changing for her. We found the new cat a new home after about two months, but in the meantime old cat had developed a peeing problem on my younger son’s clothes (which? you would think would be great incentive to PICK UP the clothes, but no!). It continued after new cat left our home permanently and I finally took old cat to the vet, who said she had a UTI, which apparently can be brought on my stress. One round of antibiotics and it hasn’t happened again since the first day of the meds. So relieved! and new cat is happy at his new house, too. So, might check with your vet to make sure your kitty doesn’t have a UTI.
Cat pee smell is SO HARD to get rid of. I have found that XO works the best, but it takes time and commitment – sometimes many applications. If it is in carpet, you see to SATURATE it with the stuff, often times more than once. It can be expensive and it sucks because you have to do it, or the pee smell makes them think it’s the place to pee.
Once you saturate, it helps to cover the area with a garbage bag or something to keep it from evaporating quickly – the longer it’s in there, the better it works.
A black light can help find pee spots you don’t know about.
I second the trip to the vet to look for a UTI. And the happy hormone spray. Our vet uses it every time we come in.
Annie Proulx lives 30 miles from me! Love her. Love her.
Can’t read all the comments so I’m sorry if I’m repeating, but I had a mouse in my car too. I used a plain old fashioned trap, but I forgot to tie it to something. So the poor thing suffered and then crawled away somewhere where it was difficult to reach. I was equally traumatized. Hope this can’t happen with your trap – but wanted to mention it.
Anon- I got the kind that electrocutes them while they eat peanut butter.
Mouse traps! Get a live trap, usually available at a hardware store, and bait with a thimblefull of peanut butter. Mouse is more likely to come out at night. Live traps work much better than the “deadly” ones.
…and if you can’t stand the thought of seeing or handling the mouse once caught, just toss the entire trap. Or wait a few days and then pull the pin in the corner of it and let the contents roll out into the trash.
Totally not on the mouse topic, but google online dating is a very good idea. You could google all the qualities you are looking for! I mean, if one was looking.
I don’t have cat pee to deal with but we’re big fans of Kids and Pets here for, well, our kids and pet. It’s at Walmart and I think there’s a rebate form out for it to try for free right now??
Good luck with the mouse thing. I hate the critters!
Swistle, are you in the mood to give some advice? I’d like some advice. My husband and I just started trying for baby number one and all the waiting and more waiting is killing me. Any recommendations on how to make the waiting bearable? Thanks!
When we moved into our on base house in Quantico the stove wasn’t working. They brought us a new one that had clearly been stored in some kind of warehouse. After I few days I started to notice strange things (and we had no kids at the time) like little pieces of food left on the stove that I was SURE weren’t there the night before. One night I had a plate of cookies and the next morning half a cookie was in the burner and there were these weird little “chocolate pieces” on the plate of cookies. I had NEVER dealt with any sort of small creature before so foolishly I had NO IDEA what droppings looked like. Take a deep breath– I PICKED THEM UP (GAAAAHHH) to get a closer look because I was mystified as to what it was. Me =naive?yes. Once I put all the pieces together I was frantically googling any sort of parasite or disease I could get from mouse feces. I guess I survived. Anyway, I called housing to let them know about the problem and they insisted it was *my* problem to deal with. Nice….thanks for the stove with the family of mice in it. When I opened the top of the stove there were all sorts of treasures squirreled away in there. So- I feel for you. What if you let New Cat sleep in the car, like, some sort of family initiation he has to pass (ha ha) …..maybe he’ll take care of the problem for you?
Do you park in a garage? I got three sonic traps from bed bath and beyond. They were three for $10. You plug them in and they emit a noise that people can’t hear. I did this in my tiny apartment. Three mice shot out from under the fridge and started running in circles. After some screaming, I collected myself. I opened the back door, they ran out and I never saw them again. I left the things plugged in for a week. Only two caveats – 1) They work best on uncarpetted surfaces. So they may or may not work in a car. 2) pets can hear them so if your kitties go in the garage, this may be out.
It’s worth a shot…
Ugh, cat pee smell… I have no advice that others haven’t already given, but I can empathize. And the mouse in the car thing — double ugh. SO sorry you have to deal with this stuff!
Whoa, so much to discuss about the mouse trap and the fact that there’s a mouse in your car! I can’t believe there’s a mouse in your car, but I’m gonna go with it.
I love the product description of the mouse trap and my favorite part is this:
Humane kill: meets International Humane Kill standards.
We have to worry about killing a mouse in a humane manner? Seriously?
I will state here and now, I am a mouse-killing maverick. Word to the mice in the house (and the car): if I must kill a mouse, the mouse will rue the day it stopped by my pad.
God, I can’t even read these comments, because they are *freaking my ass out!*. I am sorry for your pee and mouse troubles, is what I want to say, and I second the Fabuloso! recommendation. I love Fabuloso! for many reasons, (one of which is the way I say it in my head “FabulOSO!”) it’s so cheap and great at removing smells and dirt. Also I loved A Map of the World. Seeing it in that pile of books makes me want to read it again.
Swistle,
First, this isn’t spam or a paid advertisement, but have you thought about getting a Kindle? I just got one for my birthday in January and I LOVE it for traveling. You would love it too. No more trips to the store, library, etc. for books. You can just get whatever book you want whenever you want!
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