Why Your House Smells Like Pets (Even After Cleaning)

Episode Title: Why Your House Smells Like Pets (Even After Cleaning)
 Host: Amy Castro
 Guest: Ed Quinlan

Summary:
 If your house smells like your pets even after you clean, you’re not alone. In this episode, Amy Castro sits down with Ed Quinlan to break down why pet odors linger, what’s actually causing them, and what pet owners often get wrong when trying to fix the problem.

Chapters

 00:00 What That Pet Smell Really Means
 01:52 Why You Stop Noticing It
 05:04 Why Some Pets Smell Worse
 09:19 Why Odors Keep Coming Back
 12:01 Cleaning Mistakes That Make It Worse
 20:45 Routines That Actually Help
 25:06 Where Odors Hide In Your Home
 26:30 Using A Black Light To Find Spots
 34:52 When You Need More Than DIY
 39:01 Why Pets Keep Going Back To The Same Spot 

Transcript:

Amy Castro (00:00)

You know that moment when you come home after you've been gone a few days and you open the door and it hits you. Your house does not smell clean. In fact, it smells like your pets and not in a cute way. In a, did they turn this place into a bathroom kind of way. If that's ever happened to you, there's a reason for that. And what you're doing to fix it might actually be making it worse. So stay tuned to find out more.

You've reached the Pet Parent Hotline, your lifeline to practical solutions for your toughest pet parenting challenges. I'm your host Amy Castro, and I'm here to help you cut through the noise and turn expert advice into step-by-step strategies so you can stop chasing your tail and start enjoying life with pets again.

If you found this show because you're worried your house smells like your pets and you don't know what to do next, you're in the right place. Today we're talking about something a lot of pet owners think they've got handled until they haven't. You're cleaning, you're trying to stay on top of it, and somehow the smell, you know that smell, it's still there. So what's actually causing it and why does it keep coming back? To find the answer, I'm sitting down with Ed Quinlan, president of ChemDry, a carpet and upholstery cleaning company.

that's been around for decades. He's spent more than 20 years in the cleaning industry, watching how our homes have changed as pets have moved from the backyard into our living rooms, onto our furniture, and into just about every part of the house. And that shift has created a whole new set of challenges when it comes to keeping homes clean and dealing with odors that don't go away with typical cleaning. And as a pet owner himself with three rescue dogs and a cat, he's dealing with the same issues most of us are. So,

He's here to help us find some answers. Well, Ed, welcome to the show.

Ed Quinlan (01:52)

Hello, hello, so good to be here, Amy.

Amy Castro (01:55)

Yeah, I'm happy to have you because any tips that I can get when you've got six animals running around the house is always helpful. So I wanted to kind of kick off and talk about this phenomenon where you take a trip, you didn't smell anything in your house before you left. But this has happened to me a lot. I go on a business trip, I'm gone two nights and I come back and I walk in the front door and the house stinks. I mean, it just does not smell good. Or you go into a stranger's house and you can smell immediately, but they're...

seemingly oblivious to the whole thing.

Ed Quinlan (02:25)

No, this happens, this happens a lot, right? So as you live in your own space, right? You just become accustomed to it. And you could even go to work for the day and then come home and you're, just so accustomed to it. And that just becomes your home smell. And maybe every now and then you might get a little whiff of something extra and you're like, let me go up. I'll solve that. And there's some kind of fresh spill or whatnot that you've caught. But in general, those ongoing odors can evolve and grow. And as they evolve, you really, you don't notice them.

So when someone new comes into the house or go away for a few days and you come back and your nose literally resets and then you smell it like, Oh, you know, and it could come from multiple sources, right? As homes with pets, there is this sort of musky kind of smell that really seems pet related. You know, I have a teenage son, he smells, his brook smells. we have to sell those orders.

Amy Castro (03:20)

Yeah, teenage boy tennis shoes. There's nothing worse than the smell of that.

Ed Quinlan (03:25)

That's

right. That's right. So true. But it's a different smell than those animal odors. So urine and spills and that kind of matter. And that tends to be a very recognizable smell and because it's so aggressive, you know, and it does build up over time, especially when you have soft furnishings, whether they're a carpet or sometimes, you know, if you have dogs that lay on the bed and they might have spills and accidents, right? And then, so you have, you have the urine side of it. And then you also have.

the body odor. And so just like humans will sweat, so will our pets. And so as they release oils, those oils have scent in them and that can get embedded, not just in the carpet, but also in the furniture, right? And it can get into your mattress, blankets or pillows that they lay in, right? And those will collect those odors and then just gently and slowly off-gas them. Those oils tend to stay and off-gas quite slowly.

the more subtle, right? Where the urine smells like cat urine is really pungent, really strong. And so when cat urine gets in carpet or upholstery, oh my gosh, right? Like you really know, and first thing you want to do is wash it and get it cleaned. That's what we all think about. And from a cleaning standpoint, the fresher the better for us to clean it and get as much of that out.

⁓ Also recognizing that over time, those urine molecules crystallize and then slowly break down. And as they break down, they continue to release and off gas and it can take years. So part of the treatment is get that all solved as quickly as possible. So it's not a years long process of these really aggressive odors.

Amy Castro (05:04)

Yeah. Well, yeah, and two things I want to dig in on there because right before I got on this recording with you, I did a Google search and I basically asked why are some dogs stinkier than others. And because I've got a bulldog and the weird thing is, is you can bury your nose in her back and she does not smell, but her bed reeks. And there have been a couple of beds that I've had to throw away, even though they've been through the washing machine.

because it will not go away. Like what's going on there? Do certain fabrics hang on to things more? And then just to answer the stinky dog question too, is that yes, in fact, some dogs do smell more than others and it has to do with their breed, the oils, like you mentioned, and then things like yeast and skin infections and allergies, those can amplify odors on dogs.

Ed Quinlan (05:57)

Diet, right, diet can play a factor. Yeah. So from a cleaning standpoint, when I think of ⁓ like a nylon or rayon and the oils getting into those, those are polyester based. so as the oils hit them, they're not necessarily merging into the fabric, but they'll sit there on it, right? So pretty easy to clean. But if you go and you spray it,

You might get it to run, you're sort of just moving it around. You really need to wash those. And I'll say the same thing about a natural fiber. If you've got, if you've got a cotton blanket that they're laying on, you know, those will absorb those oils more into their, into their content. But when they wash, they do a really good job of releasing them. And so they, they clean up really, really well and they'll often become more fresh. So it's just, I think just having a routine of cleaning their bedding.

and cleaning those areas where they lay. You know, I have an ottoman in front of my front bay window and two of my dogs love to go sit there and watch whoever walks by. And so I laid a washable blanket right on there and I wash it once a week. I just put it as part of the routine.

Amy Castro (07:07)

Mm. Yeah. ⁓ That's a good point too, the other once a week, because we have done an episode on cleaning before. And I know I have changed some habits specifically for that with just running things through the wash. like, it doesn't smell particularly bad, but why wait until you get like a layer upon layer of the smell? And that may be where I went wrong with some of those dog beds because she's got a pretty decent size bed and a pretty thick bed. And so those odors are kind of getting down in there.

Right? mean, that's kind of how that works. So maybe I'm just not getting enough water in there and really getting that smell out with some of those beds.

Ed Quinlan (07:45)

Yeah. And from a, from a chemical standpoint, know, typically hot water is a great, great tool to help release the oils, whether you have a ⁓ rayon or a nylon that, that is your bedding or whether it's a cotton or wool or other natural fiber. So heat I think is key. And usually standard laundry soap is going to, is, is going to work. but having something more.

⁓ more aggressive that is intentional for laundry, you know, and you'll find on the shelf nowadays, there are some, even some pet laundry products that are specifically for that. Or for me, I have some little pods, some I'll call them odor eating pods that I toss in, whether it's my son or whether it's the pets, I'll toss those pods in to help give an extra fight.

Amy Castro (08:36)

hope he doesn't listen to this. No, he won't listen to this.

Ed Quinlan (08:39)

He's 15, he'll never know.

Amy Castro (08:41)

Yeah, never know. We're talking bad about him behind his back. ⁓ So you had mentioned that you think the oils are kind of the biggest culprits as far as the smells lingering from the body odor. Why is it that the urine smell? Because I've had situations where, and it was cat pee, unfortunately, ⁓ where a cat peed on the couch. I cleaned it, used theoretically what I was supposed to use on it, stick my nose right down in it. I don't smell it anymore, but yet...

several days later, I'm sitting on the couch and all of a sudden I'm like, it smells again. And it's just, you know, I had to get rid of the sofa.

Ed Quinlan (09:19)

This is crazy, crazy common that people experience this with urine specifically. So the way the urine works, imagine that the cat or the dog, they'll pee in a specific spot, but then it comes in, it'll get into the backing. So not only is it hitting the original layer of whatever the surface is, but then it gets down into whatever the backing is and the structure of that fabric. And then behind that is almost always,

a whole nother layer. So if it's carpeting, there's a padding that's right underneath ⁓ the layer of carpet, and then you'll have your wood subfloor underneath that, and then the structure of the house. Well, the urine, the liquid is runny and it comes down and it spreads to whatever it can fill out. If it's on like a cushion on your sofa, there's a big foam cushion in the middle, right? And the urine will go and it'll just spread and it wants to spread out as far as it.

until it can stop spreading. That means you've got to treat a really big area. For us, we have a really special product targeting urine that from an application standpoint, we train our technicians, hey, if the urine spot that you see is the size of a baseball, you're going to go the size of a frisbee and treat around because you want to make sure that our product touches every one of those urine crystals. if the product doesn't touch that,

molecule that won't be able to have a reaction and be able to eliminate and annihilate the odor. And so we're trying to drive that through. And that's just a good, you know, even with some of your home remedy stuff is recognize that the area you're treating needs to be bigger than what you see. Yeah. You're going to see a small area. It's going to need to be treated in a much, much bigger area.

Amy Castro (11:11)

sometimes feel like I'm gonna have to push the sofa out the door and into the swimming pool to cover the whole thing. I really don't like that visual of the spreading underneath the cushion of the cat pee. that makes me totally insane. ⁓

Ed Quinlan (11:27)

And to help, you know, an open environment, so like take the cushions, put them out on the patio, put them, you know, put them under the shade because you don't necessarily want the sun bleaching your fabrics and changing their color. So make sure you protect them from sun fade, but get them outside. Just the movement of the air is going to help that off-gassing happen faster. Fans can help with that if you don't have access to a patio, say you're in a high-rise apartment and you don't have a way to do that.

turn on some fans, get more air circulation, anything you can do to accelerate that often.

Amy Castro (12:01)

It's definitely helpful. What do you think, you you're talking about home remedies and things like that, and obviously there's tons of commercial cleaners from regular household cleaners to ones that are labeled specifically for pets. I kind of wanted to talk about some of the mistakes that people make, and it sounds like the first one is thinking that, you know, if the spot's the size of a baseball, you spray that spot about that size and then you think you've got it covered. But what are some other mistakes or other?

things that we shouldn't put. I mean, obviously I'm not gonna pour bleach on my sofa, but...

Ed Quinlan (12:33)

Yeah, I think the most common mistakes we make are number one, we don't treat it fast enough, right? And so from a home remedy standpoint, the sooner you can get to it, the better. Now, number one, it has less chance to spread. In fact, I would recommend whether it's your carpet cleaner or whether you're buying new is make sure that you have stain resistance on those surfaces. The stain resistance will help minimize the amount of spreading that happens in the first place. And this doesn't.

This is all spills, right? You spill a can of soda, you don't want it to seep in either. So having stain resistance is good. Your carpet cleaner, like a chemdry, we can apply, reapply your factory's quality stain resistance, whether it's sofas or your carpet and bring back that kind of quality. So that helps just prevent it from seeping in as much as possible. And then get on it as quickly as you can. Get up as much as you can. If you don't have a wet dry vac of some

kind at home. I think every pet owner, it's a small investment to go buy one of those small machines that helps you get fresh spots and spills. Have one of those machines, it handy. You're probably still gonna find times when you missed one. You went on a trip, you came home, you didn't catch it, whatnot. And next thing you know, it's a few weeks or maybe even a few months later and you're uncovering it. There are no products on the shelf really that

work well for that kind of scenario. That's really where I'm going to recommend you call Kimdry because of our pet urine removal treatment product. Most of the early products, many of them are enzyme-based. Some of them has some oxidizers in them, but they're targeting fresh spills. That's what they're designed for. And that's what they train you with the bottle of how to use. You're just not going to get the same kind of result using those as a professional who this is what they do. And they're going to

they're gonna go through scientifically. Sometimes they'll even use moisture meters to go in and tackle, hey, how far did it spread? How fresh is it? How much do I need to do? Because they wanna save your carpet and they wanna save the smells of your house. do at home piece, fresh, easy to do at home. If it's been a while, I really don't recommend you tackle it yourself. And I'm even gonna suggest that you don't try. Here's why, is if you go and you use one of these off the shelf products,

could actually make it worse. You could spread it out even further, which means our treatment has to go bigger, or it might have chemistry in it. And if you didn't keep the bottle around for us to understand the chemistry of what products have gone onto it, ⁓ it might react with our chemistry and we might end up accidentally creating an unintended consequence of like some really negative odors that could last a couple of days. And if your mother-in-law is showing up tomorrow, I don't want that to happen. Our product will still work. just, it could have other problems.

Amy Castro (15:24)

Yeah. Yeah.

That's a good point because I think people either they don't think about having somebody come in and clean it, but you know that sofa that I ended up getting rid of, ⁓ it was not expensive, but it was new. I mean I didn't even have that six months and it was gone. And it's like, know, maybe had I known that there was something else that could work because that's exactly what I was using is I was spraying it with the enzyme cleaner and I was soaking it and I tried a couple of different kinds.

it would smell okay for a while and then it's like it kept coming back.

Ed Quinlan (16:02)

Yeah, no, probably, the enzyme cleaners are good and they're good on fresh spills, but yeah, it's quite the tackle. really is. For anyone with a new sofa or an old sofa, when you've got as many dogs at home as you or I do, I really recommend throwing down a nice blanket over the top of it, something easy to wash, a very, very washable blanket. You know that the dogs have their spots and that's where the majority of us gonna land.

It doesn't help against the spills that accidentally happen, right? Especially with our elderly dogs, we end up with vomit, we end up with pee, any of these bio materials. And you want to, as soon as you see them, get them treated. And if you're concerned about it, know, call a professional. We'll be glad to, we'll be glad to come out and help go deeper and we'll do everything we can to save it. I mean, there might be some that we just can't save sometimes, you know? I especially like fabrics like a microfiber.

A microfiber does really, really well with pets, especially, you know, because they're easy to clean and can be really easy for you to get pet hair off with the right tools, but they're quite porous. And so, you know, they come with their own set of challenges too.

Amy Castro (17:18)

Yeah, well, and that's something we and we actually did an episode with a designer talking about fabrics and things like that. So between talking with her and then talking to the previous guest about her, some of her cleaning routines, I have made some changes like, you know, putting a blanket on the sofa, you know, yeah, you can put your child's door, the Explorer, old bedspread over your sofa, or you could get a nice blanket that looks nice and doesn't make your living room look like a child's bedroom. And, you know, then

you've got something nice to look at, but then you can throw it in the washing machine. The other thing I would highly recommend to people who are letting their animals on their beds, no matter what it is, is to have a waterproof mattress pad. Because mattress, I mean, we know how thick a mattress is, and it's, you know, there's no waterproofing on a mattress itself, and they're expensive. I just bought one for my daughter's room, and there's a lot of money. I don't want anybody peeing, puking, bleeding.

pooping, nothing. Nobody's allowed to do anything on that bed. So, but the waterproof mattress pad helps.

Ed Quinlan (18:22)

That's a really, really good tip. think those, those extra layers really, really help, you know, while we're talking about urine, urine does have some qualities in it that often like to break down different fabrics and different, or different dyes are going to, ⁓ gosh, I hope that we don't have to learn per, per fabric piece, right? But often with like, ⁓ with a nice rug, almost everybody who has a hardwood floors puts down rugs.

hardwood or tile, and if it's in your dining room, you're put an area rug down underneath the table, right? Well, our dogs might wanna go pee on the leg of the table or the leg of a chair. And now we have this puddle. Untreated, again, the longer it sits, more it's gonna damage the rug. But untreated, there's the odor side, but then also it could actually physically damage and break down the dyes inside the, in the fiber. Now I have bleach spots.

that aren't actually from bleach, it's from the urine. Urine will go from an acid to a base as it dries. And that transformation can be significant. And a good underlayment, protect your floor underneath, whether it's a rug or whether it's your mattress pad, right? Whenever you can add that extra layer, really helps. And there's some high quality products out there for you to be able to add as these underlayments.

Amy Castro (19:27)

Yeah, don't know. We don't need that problem either.

Yeah. Well, and I think sometimes it's knowing your pet and knowing what they're likely to do. Like I was a hundred percent convinced when that sofa was being delivered, somebody was going to pee on it. And I know who it was because it's just, she was, probably shouldn't have bought it when I did, but I needed something to sit on. So when you know your pets, you know where they hang out and you know what they do. I've got a cat right now that's kind of a puker. And so he's going through a thing. can't figure out what's going on with him, but

there are certain places in the house, especially now that I'm selling my, or trying to sell my house and showing it, that he's just not gonna be allowed in here for now because I can't be having that happening. You know, it's just no time, no time for that. ⁓ You had talked about kind of making that routine of cleaning the bedding and things like that. Are there some other good routines that help minimize? Like I know that's helped me a lot with just washing things before they get.

so foul that I could smell them across the room, the dog bed, you know, it's just like every, every Saturday, all the dog beds go in the wash kind of thing.

Ed Quinlan (20:45)

Well, you know, washing the pet itself, right? With routine. that probably is best decided with your vet, right? Then based on their skin type and whatnot and using the right shampoos. you'll find shampoos that some are designed with odor eaters in them. You know, do right by your pet, first and foremost. And then also look at your soft surfaces throughout the house.

Make sure that you're thinking, do I see my pets laying around the most? Right? And make sure that those spots, you have a plan, right? And then a pattern and say, okay, I'm going to wash these spaces once a week. And then maybe there's some other blankets that are less common. And so you're like, okay, once every two weeks, I wash those or whatever your pattern is and ⁓ establish that routine there. Then also, you know, just regular house cleaning and making sure, cause the pet,

urine and those odors are getting onto all the surfaces, right? And so deep cleaning your hard surfaces, your tile, tile will usually have grout lines between the tiles and those grout lines are often porous. Now we have sealers that we put on the grout and over time that sealer wears off. And so having it reapplied can be helpful when you have your professional tile cleaners out. But in the meantime, get in there with a good cleaner and ⁓ recognize that urine might

come through some of the rugs and get into those surfaces. And so anything you can do to extract it out is always welcomed, right? A lot of us just think about mopping. And what I don't like about mopping is maybe for weekly routine cleaning is fine, but you know, a couple of times a year you want to have it professionally cleaned with extracted, even my hard surfaces, because otherwise I'm just moving stuff around when I mop. And I get some of it out through that dirty water, but a lot of it stays behind.

And then as you're arming yourself with products, know, recognize that a lot of the products are designed to mask odors. That's their focus. And you'll put the product on, mask the odor smells right for a day or two days, but a week later, all those original smells are back. You need products and technologies that are designed to remove and eliminate the odor, not just mask it.

Amy Castro (23:04)

Yeah. It's funny you said about the grout because I find grout is the perfect channel for urine to run.

Ed Quinlan (23:12)

It's

red, right? It just lets it get in those little lines and run around like little canals.

Amy Castro (23:18)

Yeah, it's like it's following a map and it's just going. Well, and also I'm glad you brought up the thing about the mop, because that's one of the things that I'm not like a germaphobe or anything, really. But to me, mops are disgusting because you are. mean, even if you rinse the mop, you're still just kind of pushing it around. And if you're not bringing that back up, that always freaks me out a bit that there's...

you can't possibly be really cleaning it. And especially when people are using a mop that has a wet pad and you're, there's a commercial on TV where the guy goes through and they don't show him changing the pad and he's behind the toilet and then he's in the kitchen. And then I'm like, Oh my gosh, you just, you're making me crazy there. Like you just smearing everything all over the house. So I think.

Ed Quinlan (24:05)

When the water gets dirty, if you're using a traditional mop, when the water gets dirty, change it out, put new fresh water in there and keep the water hot, right? Heat is a great way to release those oils in the dirt so that your mop has this best chance of getting it out. And if you're using the pad style, change those pads out. They get dirty quick. You know, I recommend a system where you can get a microfiber pad so you can have a stack of them and then just throw them in the washer, right? And that's what I do at my house.

crazy easy and I get my chemical on the floor and I'll do that. And that's how I do my typical weekly cleaning. And then a deeper cleaning, you know, even consider like at least once a year going through and wiping down your walls, you know, six, eight, well, guess it depends on how tall your dog is. My dogs are little, so I'd say six or eight inches up off the ground, bottom of the ground. For some of us it's going to be two feet and for others it'll be three feet minimum. know, ideally you're doing that once a month or ⁓ once every three months, but

You know, make sure, make sure deep, deep cleaning like that's just happening at least at minimum once a year in your house.

Amy Castro (25:06)

Yeah, it's amazing. We just had a deep cleaning ⁓ before we put the house on the market and the house was pretty clean beforehand, but it does make a huge difference in the way that things smells because there are places that odors I think hide that you you hadn't thought of or you haven't gotten to in a while, know, that kind of thing. I want to jump back to the idea of finding, you you were talking about trying to find these things quickly and

you know, if you've got a really good nose or you know, I mean, think if somebody knows that their pet is inclined to have accidents, like I have a Chihuahua and she will pee in her own bed if she's in it. You know, you just can't, she's gonna, if you get lucky, maybe she hasn't peed somewhere and we try to keep her confined so that at least if she does, we know it's in that room and it's all tile. But, you know, to just get in the habit, if you've been gone to work all day and you know you've got a pet that has accidents.

Look for them. Don't assume I walked in the door and it smells okay and the dog doesn't look guilty so I don't need to look. Like, look for them. But what I was gonna ask you is what do you think about, because I use a black light. So every once in a while, and it's horrifying, but every once in a while I'll shut off the lights and I'll go especially to the rooms that have carpet that might smell a little bit stale and I'll go looking for spots. Is that helpful?

Ed Quinlan (26:30)

Yeah. A black light is a great telltale. Now a black light is going to fluoresce, you know, any kind of biomaterial, right? And so you might see more than you're in, right? But if you don't have a black light, get a black light, you know, they're not very expensive and get them at the hardware store and, you know, just flash it out. Now you do meet the darker the room, the more things are going to show up for you. So this isn't something to do at noon or one o'clock in the afternoon.

This is an evening or early morning activity, but just walk through, really does a great job of fluorescing where the originating source location is for a spot or a spill. And it'll reveal things to you that probably often the pattern in our carpet or furnishings makes it even harder to see it, right? And there'll be times when you can smell something, but you can't really see it. So a black light can come in handy then, or to your point, you know,

routinely, hey, it's my, it's my, ⁓ know, Saturday morning check. Yeah, there we go. Let's break out the, break out the black light. a little dance on, get some emo music going. It'll be great. Crawling around on You'll see those spots. I like, what I like to do is I have like a little marker of some sort. Maybe it's like a guitar pick, right? Or ⁓ I guess a little post-it note, right? And when you see it.

Amy Castro (27:33)

Stink night.

Yeah.

Ed Quinlan (27:57)

put something physically there because often when you turn the light back on, you're not going to see it again. If you go, it was over right in front of the sofa, about three feet to the left, you're probably going to miss it. Once you've identified where the locations are, then I would recommend get down in there and find out what it really is. Right. this is the part that might be a little more, ⁓ I'm going to ask us to like,

let's go do this and get down, put your nose right against where the spot is, where you've identified the spot at. And you can even rub it with your hands to help release some of whatever is causing the odor and give it a good smell. And what does it smell like? Right? Because does it smell like soda? Does it smell like a Sprite ⁓ or ice cream or something? Or does it smell like urine? And you'll be able to tell. And then that'll tell you how to treat it. Yeah.

Amy Castro (28:57)

Yeah, and I've had that happen recently, which is one of the reasons I realized that Chihuahua, most of the time I close my bedroom door, we only have carpet in three rooms and it's the three bedrooms. And so usually I close my door, but for a while there I was leaving it open. And I kid you not, I've never seen her come back here. But when I got that stink light out and I got the whole thing going. So I've got the machine, I'm dragging the machine behind me. I got the stink light in one hand, I'm crawling around on my hands and knees in the dark.

and it was not probably six feet inside the door. There were three spots. So obviously she'd been coming in here, peeing, and then turning around and flying out of here faster than I could see her do it.

Ed Quinlan (29:38)

If she wanted you to see her do it, she would have done that out in the open somewhere. out in open. And across all dogs and even cats, right? They're going to go do it in these spaces where they're out of the way. You're not going to notice it. And then you'll come across it later and might be way, way, way later that you find it. So that black light is really going to come in handy. Around the corner of the bed, over by the nightstand, under the nightstand, right? ⁓

Amy Castro (29:43)

This is-

Ed Quinlan (30:06)

Under the, if they're small enough that they could get under the bed and, and do it sometimes you'll even find some pets will pee under the bed.

Amy Castro (30:15)

Or hawk up a hairball. I have found some hairballs under the bed. So yeah, you really do need to look everywhere. The other thing I was going to say about that black light that I noticed too is that if you have cats or even a dog who's ⁓ a male dog that lifts his leg, ⁓ it will pick up on hard surfaces sometimes too. So I have found places where I've had a foster dog who was a leg lifter and I didn't realize it right away, but I'm smelling pee.

But I'm not seeing any puddles per se because it was up against, ⁓ you know, like the corner of a room or against the wall. And then you see it when it fluoresces. So definitely a black light is a must for sure. So in, in talking about chem dry, think of chemicals and I thought, ⁓ well, we can't have this guy on the show because everyone's going to freak out that we're trying to push chemicals on them. Can you enlighten us as to the safety and the efficacy of using some of the products?

Ed Quinlan (31:15)

Yeah, well, so ChemDry, next year marks 50 years for us as a brand, right? And the chem in ChemDry stands for chemistry. And really we're a brand founded on innovation and really figuring out how do we leverage chemistry to make homes healthier and cleaner and safer. And so, our R &D team with our lab and our chemists are always saying, how do we make things better? And we have a couple of angles, one,

One of those is the things that we really care about. ⁓ Number one priority is it needs to work, right? Efficacy really, really matters. And then I'm going to follow up with a really important second priority, which is we want to mitigate any damage or risk to any human or pet or the environment. And so we've,

always had that as our vision as a brand and like our core cleaner for carpet cleaning is called the natural, right? It uses the power of carbonation and it's a phenomenal, a phenomenal way to clean carpets, but it's received the EPA safer choice moniker, right? So very, a very, very safe product. And as, as they develop products, we're saying, Hey, how do we make sure that this is going to be

the best possible outcome from an efficacy standpoint and from a wellness standpoint for the people who are using it and applying it, for the people who are in the homes and the spaces where it's being applied to, and the fabrics and pieces that it's gonna touch, right? Because all that matters. We recognize people have babies and they have pets and we love to lay on the carpet and roll around and enjoy it. Our rugs, our upholstery, like that's what those furnishings are for.

And so we really want to be kind and gentle to those and also effective. And so we've really through science been able to achieve that. our urine related product, pretty remarkable and how we've evolved that over the, over the last two and a half decades. This product has been evolved into its latest formula and it's called Pert3 now. And ⁓ the technician comes in, they're well-trained. They know how to find the odors.

You know, how to diagnose what is it? So they treat it with the right product in the right way. ⁓ And whenever possible, we try to get out as much as possible of the odor and the odor causing agent, and then leave as little chemical in the carpet as we can, recognizing those chemicals are going to do their job. And then we have a general deodorizer, anti-allergen that we do as part of our cleaning process. We call it the healthy home process for, for homeowners. And it has.

deodorizers, plus it has molecular entrapment in it, it has neutralizers in there. So we're trying to attack odors and allergens at the same time and make home safer and cleaner for the people who inhabit them.

Amy Castro (34:15)

I think the idea of chemistry is that sometimes people are anti-chemicals or whatever it might be, but when it comes to the molecular makeup of certain things, mean, everything has a molecular makeup. You can put certain natural cleaning products together and create something that is toxic, caustic, whatever. I mean, everything can be dangerous if it's not used properly. So something to definitely keep in mind. ⁓

So I just wanted to kind of pull things together. I guess first to ask you if there are any other tips that you have for us that we have not covered already.

Ed Quinlan (34:52)

Yeah, just reiterate how important it is to look everywhere, right? Don't just look down, but look up, look around, right? Learn your pets, learn what your pets' habits are. If you're a new pet owner, go get yourself some of these fresh cleaning products. Get the ones that are specific to pets and designed for fresh owners. You're going to find that those will be the most effective for you. And then recognize that there's always professionals.

that can help you when you're learning the hard way, right? Recognizing that also your pets have a mind of their own. And so while you might want them to lay on that bed in that corner and they, for some reason, choose this sofa over here, whenever you're gone, you know, that's gonna be a little bit out of your control.

Amy Castro (35:43)

Yeah. Well, and we've talked about crating. I know sometimes some people are very anti-crate, but I am a big fan of crates because at least, like you said, it's out of control. If I decide I want to allow my dog to get up on the couch with me, then I can put something down and make sure it stays in place. But I tell you that bulldog, if I left her to her own devices out there, even if the couch was covered, she would dig the cover off. I don't know where she thinks she's going. She's digging down underneath the cover and then she's laying right on the sofa.

You can take a little bit more control sometimes than you give yourself credit for and you probably should. So what I'm hearing too though is catch it early, look around, catch it early, have your products and your cleaners. My little spot cleaner, I love that thing and it's great because it does extract. I I'm sure it's not a professional level extraction, but it's better than just smearing it around with a paper towel or a dish rag or something like that. And then I think...

the last thing would be to know when to say when. Like how many bottles of that cleaner are you gonna pour on? Because that's where I felt like I was. You I had already put a ton of stuff. Now my sofa reeked of pee and the cleaner. And it's just like, I'm done. I'm done with this whole thing. So for people who are thinking, I don't wanna pay to have somebody come in and clean it. Well, how much are you paying with the getting rid of your sofa or buying 50 bottles of over, I was gonna say over the counter. That's not the right word.

Ed Quinlan (37:11)

Hahaha

Amy Castro (37:12)

You know, buying 50 bottles of cleaner off the shelf at the store and just have it not smell any better than when you started or ruin your fabric.

Ed Quinlan (37:22)

Yeah. In many instances, we're trying to change the pet's behavior and we don't want them to pee in that same spot. And especially dogs who mark and they do tend to go back to the same spot over and over and over again. And if you can clean that really, really well, really, really deeply, you have your better chance of them not thinking of that as the spot to go, as you're training them to go and going to the areas, whatever, whatever your...

or exterior pattern is or whatever that you're trying to teach them from, you you want to make sure you've really gotten rid of that smell, because they'll just come mark over the top of that old smell the moment that they think it's there. So, right, so we can totally help with that really, really deep change.

Amy Castro (38:08)

Yeah, there you go. Yeah. So you can seek cleaning and help ⁓ behavior and training help at the same time is probably a good idea. Well, Ed, I appreciate you being here and helping us kind of navigate this stinky issue, but a necessary issue for pet owners. Because like I said in the beginning, I mean, I have a big hang up with pet stink. I don't want it in my house. I like a house that smells like nothing actually, just fresh.

clean and that's it. I think if we can follow some of the advice that you gave us, we can stay ahead of it and then know when to say when and get some professional help when you need to.

Ed Quinlan (38:47)

Keep

our number handy, reach out to your local chem drive. We've got locations all across the USA and Canada. in 29 countries. Know that we're available. Know that we're ready and eager to help whenever you have an issue.

Amy Castro (39:01)

All right, great. Well, thank you so much for being here. If this episode made you a little paranoid or made you second guess what your house smells like, here's a trick. Ask somebody you trust who you know will be honest with you to come in and let you know what they think about the way your house smells. Then message me and tell me what they said. And before we wrap up, there's one more thing I want to point out because this is where a lot of people can get stuck. If you can smell it, your pet can smell it way more.

which means even if you think you cleaned it, to them, that spot can still smell like a bathroom. And that's one of the biggest reasons pets keep going back to the same place. So if you're dealing with repeat accidents, it's probably not just a behavior issue for your pet. It might just be incomplete cleaning. So that's it for today's episode. If this helped you look at your home a little bit differently, please make sure you're following the show so you don't miss what's coming next. Thanks for listening to the Pet Parent Hotline.

If you enjoyed the show, don't keep it to yourself. Text a friend right now with a link and tell them I've got a show that you need to hear and ask them to let you know what they think. And remember, your pet's best life starts with you living yours. So be sure to take good care of yourself this week and your pets.