Curse Of The Tax Return Part 2

Now you may be wondering why I titled both my posts "Curse of the Tax Return"  as I have not yet mentioned anything about said tax return.  See, these little events which all cost money happened just after I filed for our tax return and found we were getting enough money back to pay off some debts that we have been dealing with for a couple of years, and then hopefully SAVE some, you know, like in a savings account?

Well I guess I never should have said the "S" word out loud!!!

Doesn't he look so cute and innocent?

The subtitle of this post is "How to Clean Cat Pee Out Of Your Couch Again and Again and Again!"

I am determined not to have to spend $1000+ on a new couch.  And since all of this happened during a time of the month where we have less than $50 to our name I could not exactly go out and buy expensive cleaners or take Mr Kitty to the vet to see what is wrong with him.   I had already tried using what we had left of a bottle of Nature's Miracle which is $10 and not to be found in my town. We have not been able to sit in our living room for 8 days now.  And this is not a big house.  The kids are driving me to want to drink but I can't afford a bottle of wine.

Step One:  couch prep.  We flipped the couches upside down and discovered to our horror that the pee had soaked down through the hollow part and then through the canvas-y stuff that covers the underside and then onto the floor.

I grabbed a standard head screwdriver and a pair of pliers and started yanking the staples out to remove the fabric.  I just about fell over from the stench that came wafting at me.To my dismay I saw that there is a layer of a quilt batting type material between the springs and the fabric that sits under the cushions, most likely to keep the springs from ripping through into the cushion.

It was SEWN into the main part of the couch.  UGH.  So I had to cut it away with the scissors and try to clean it too.  And so both pieces of my couch lay, naked and gutted, in the middle of the living room floor.

Step Two: Figure out how the hell to clean oodles of cat pee,both male and female, from my couch on a budget of basically $5.

We used precious money (wasted, I should say) on one of those rental carpet cleaners with an upholstery attachment from Hannaford which I thought was a steam cleaner but through my feverish haze could not go with Kris to the store to make sure.

The Rug Doctor

We couldn't afford to buy the fancy carpet cleaning fluid either so we were just using water which did nothing but make it worse.  And the cat peed on it again that night.  So the next day I went online and googled "homemade carpet cleaner" and came up with this:

3 quarts HOT water (not boiling)
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup hydrogen pyroxide (might bleach out something with color)
3 tbsp blue dawn mixed into the water thoroughly
drop or two of essential oils if ya got em

They call that an "enzyme" cleaner.   Cost to make: NOTHING since I already had all this crap!!

While I couldn't really use this solution effectively on the couch I did use it on cleaning the carpets in the kids' bedrooms so as not to have completely wasted the thing.  It took out a PUKE stain from about 5 years ago that the commercial cleaner couldn't!

That stain was way darker before...wish I had taken a pic of it first!

 The stain was kind of like a grayish black splotch on the floor.  I just held the machine over it, made it spew the mixture down, and then turned the vacuum part on and it was gone!!  So that helped me feel a little better about the $40 bill.

What I did for the couch was make a mixture similar to above except added baking soda, less peroxide, and more vinegar.  I like thinking about Al's French Frys when I'm sitting on my couch.  I then took a cleaning cloth and soaked the areas with this mixture.  The springs began to rust immediately.  AWESOME.  I just ignored that little chemical reaction and kept scrubbing.  Once I was sort of satisfied we left it to dry.  I put a layer of plastic over the couch that I got for $1.50 at the Dollar General and went to bed.

DG "Drop Cloth" for $1.50 found in the Hardware aisle.

The cat peed on the plastic TWICE.  Ok, well at least its not on the couch.  I threw it away and put the cat in the basement for the night.

The next morning no pee.  Well duh he was in the basement.  So I let him out thinking maybe he'd learned a lesson (yeah right.  He's a cat.) and then went away for three hours to visit a friend.  I thought I was being smart by laying down another piece of DG plastic on it.  When I got back there was a huge puddle of pee on the plastic in the one area no one had peed on, and a hole had been clawed through it so the pee soaked into the couch. AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!   When do I get to walk out and never look back?  I took a pee sample and double bagged it and put it in the fridge so when we do get money I can bring it to the vet.

I just about gave up until I had a new idea.  I found a bottle of Resolve carpet cleaner that says it removes urine in the back of my kitchen cabinet.  Who knows how old it is, and who cares.   I shook it up and scrubbed the hell out of the couch.  Then I took a can of Febreze air freshener and sprayed it all over the cushions and inside the couch.  The smell was gone!  I smelled nothing but "Spring Laundry Scent".   I covered the couch in a third sheet of DG plastic and so far its been 48 hours since he has peed on it.  I'm thinking he was just stressed out from the other cat and the basement being flooded and had a mental breakdown.  I can relate but usually I just go in the closet and cry instead of peeing on things.  Maybe he's onto something...