Your couch is a high-traffic piece of furniture, especially if your pets have free roam of the house. Once in a while, you’re likely to see a damp spot that has a particularly nasty odor to it, or you might return from vacation to a vague odor where your dog likes to curl up.
There’s no need to push the couch to the curbside and buy a new one. Cleaning up that urine, and most importantly getting rid of the smell, is pretty easy in most cases.
In This Article We'll Discuss
How to get Cat Urine Smell Out of Couch & Cushions
Cat urine poses a special challenge for the same reason that cats normally use a litter box. They like to pee in the same places. They detect those primarily through the sense of smell. If a cat soils your couch, it is likely to repeat. That makes it vital to remove the odor.
We’d recommend using an enzyme cleaner for a couple of reasons. Cat urine tends to have a sharper, pungent quality to it, especially as the cat ages. Plus, you want to break your pet from establishing a habit of urinating on your couch. So you want to be as thorough as possible.
While you can go the DIY route, enzyme cleaners do an excellent job of breaking down acids in the urine, which helps you get all of it quickly. They are the priciest option, but we think it’s worth the investment.
How to get Dog Urine Smell out of Couch & Cushions
Contrasted to the sharp smell of cat urine, dog urine is milder. You’ll still want to clean it as quickly because it is unpleasant and because the lingering smell might prompt other pets to mistake your couch for a litter box.
For dog urine, you can also use an enzyme cleaner, but going to the expense is unnecessary. You can also make a cleaner at home out of dish soap, white vinegar, and water. Mix it into a froth and work it into the stain with an old toothbrush. Lift it all off without rubbing it back in.
Mist the stain area with white vinegar, which will neutralize odors as it dries. Sprinkle baking soda over the stained area and leave overnight. Residual odors in deep fibers will get lifted to the baking soda, which you vacuum away in the morning.
How to get Human Urine Smell out of Couch & Cushions
If you have small children or care for an aging parent, you might need to clean human urine off your couch. When that happens, your first step in cleaning it up is having patience with the person who had the accident. Just remember, that person didn’t do it on purpose.
It’s important to clean the stain up as quickly as possible. The longer it is there, the harder it will ultimately be to thoroughly remove it. Sop up as much of the stain as possible. If it’s dried into the couch, the first step is to apply a little warm water to loosen it up.
Use paper towels or rags to absorb as much of it as possible. To remove the rest, we’d suggest using either a shop vacuum or the furniture brush on your carpet cleaner to lift the rest. If you are using the furniture attachment, you can either try using an enzyme cleaner or a combination of white vinegar and warm water for a thorough cleaning.
Removing Urine Smell From Leather Couch
If you get to pet urine on a leather couch quickly, it isn’t hard to clean up and probably won’t leave a stain or odor. If the urine has dried to the leather, it’s a different story. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to remove the unsightly stain and unpleasant odor.
White vinegar is your friend here. It is a natural cleaner and deodorant. Mix equal parts white vinegar and water together, and dampen a rag with the mixture. Wipe the stain with the rag and let sit for 10 minutes. The vinegar needs to air dry to be most effective.
Wipe the stained area again with the rag, and then with a dry cloth to collect excess fluid. Again allow it to air dry.
Apply a leather cleaner and conditioner to the stain area with a different, lint-free cloth. Buff with a damp cloth and allow to air dry.
How to do it Yourself
Enzyme cleaners work the best to remove urine odor, but they can be expensive. Plus, you don’t want to waste time running to the store if you can help it. The longer the odor is around, the more difficult it is to thoroughly remove. Plus, it might encourage your pets to continue using the couch as a toilet.
You probably have things around the house that you can use to whip together a DIY couch cleaner. The most common one uses one part of white vinegar to four parts water. Scrub the mixture into your couch fabric with a sponge. The vinegar neutralizes the ammonia in the urine.
Sprinkle the entire area with baking soda and allow to sit for 12 hours. The baking soda absorbs both the liquid and the odor. Vacuum it up.
Another DIY cleaner mixes a couple drops of dish soap with three tablespoons of baking powder and 1.25 cups of hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle. If you don’t have hydrogen peroxide, you can substitute white vinegar.
Spray the stain, but don’t soak it. Let it sit for an hour, and then gently blot up with a damp cloth and allow to air dry. In a few hours, you’ll never know the stain was ever there.
Conclusion
You don’t need fancy expensive cleaning solutions or brushes to remove the smell of urine from your couch. It also won’t take a full day of cleaning and disinfecting. In fact, you probably already have useful things in your home so you can clean it up as soon as you notice it.
We hope you found this guide on how you can remove the smell of dried urine from your couch handy. If you did, please feel free to leave us a comment below or share on your favorite social media network.