Cleaning up cat pee isn't my idea of a happy Saturday afternoon, but there I was anyway.
The litter boxes live in my unfinished basement — away from the living space — and with the nice weather, it was time to throw open the basement windows and do a major clean.
Time to tote out the mouthwash.
Yes, I said mouthwash.
Although we (read: my husband) do a litter box change-out weekly, we also try to do a quarterly scrub-down of the boxes themselves.
And thanks to a tip from a nurse who used to clean out bedpans in a hospital, I now use cheap mouthwash to do the job.
First we take them outside for a hose-down to get the worst of the litter clay off of them (we line them, but our cats seem to move that around and the clay gets inside the box itself on a regular basis).
Next up I hit them with a disinfectant — usually a caustic bleach.
Finally, after they dry in the sun, we pour on the mouthwash and swish it around.
Caustic, vomit-inducing cat pee smell is gone!
I can't tell you why it works, but I've even dumped it into a bucket and mopped with a water/mouthwash mixture around the litter boxes and found the basement smells better as a whole — even after the pleasant minty scent dissipates.
It's not just covering up the icky urine smell; it's making it disappear — just like it does in hospital bedpans.
How do you tackle cat urine smells in your home?
