Tips For How To Remove Urine Stains And Odors

During a tour of one of his client’s long-term care facilities, Bill Yeadon noticed some of the male residents stood in the hallway or in their rooms and urinated, without much cause for concern on their part or from the staff responsible for taking care of them and the facility.

It occurred to him that this was not an unusual occurrence, but a growing trend in the nursing home and long-term care facility industry, given the aging population that suffers from dementia and incontinence. 

“We are not talking nasty places, we are talking very well-to-do places,” says Yeadon, learning facilitator for Jon-Don in Roselle, Illinois. “It has gotten so bad that it is not even noticed anymore.”

The challenge of cleaning urine spots from carpet is not exclusive to facilities housing senior residents; it also exists in the child day care centers where toddlers forget to use the restrooms. But these “accidents” are typically followed by cries from children, so the problems are thankfully addressed quicker.

Time is a cleaning department’s worst enemy when battling urine accidents in carpet. If the urine stain is caught quickly, it can be cleaned with a simple detergent and an odor neutralizer. Or even just water.

“Water is the universal solvent,” says Yeadon. “If you get to it right away, you can rinse it and then treat…with a simple product after removing the actual urine.”

But in cases where urine has gone unaddressed, tackling the carpet stain is a little more complex.