On the Aromatherapy mailing list a recent poster asked how to get cat urine out of a rug and stated that one of their options was to throw the rug out. Armed with that information, I'm assuming that the rug is not wool - it's a synthetic rug - possibly a shaggy type rug. If my assumptions are correct, two recommendations come to mind. One is to throw that rascal in the washing machine and if that doesn't work, dump it in the trash pile and make sure you don't ever buy another synthetic rug.....
Cleaning and deodorizing rugs depends on the type of rug - or carpet you want to clean. I don't know much about synthetic rugs and carpets, haven't had one in years, but there are them that say I'm sorta close to being a so-called two-bit "expert"...
For immediate, emergency type stains like blood, wine, lipstick, etc. - somehow they sorta go together - just dump some milk on the stain, then spoon it back up (with a spoon!) and then sponge it clean with a light solution of vinegar and water. The next day, if you're feeling up to it, you can give it a good vinegar and water bath.
All carpets will retain odors as well as dust and grit, and it's really the dust and grit that'll wear your carpet out and dull the colors. SO, monthly you should turn that rascal upside down - give it a light scrubbing with vinegar and water and a soft brush and leave it upside down (warp side up) until it's completely dry. Remember, that carpet needs to breath and it shouldn't stay damp.
If you have a Greek Flokati or Turkish Angora rug - that is wool warp and long hair (4-6 inches) pile, you have to bathe that rascal every three or four months. Cats love to pee on these rugs 'cause it sorta reminds them of being in the jungle, where the grass is high, and until that rug's been washed a few times - it still smells like a goat!
Just throw that rug in the bath tub - room temperature water - and use some Wool-Lite. Then you just get in there and stomp up and down on the rug with your feet (take your shoes off) - like the Italian ladies used to do when they wanted to mash the grapes. Move the T.V. into the bathroom so you'll have something to do while you're stomping. Just keep on stomping and watching T.V. till you get real tired. Then you take a commercial break and when you're all rested up - get back in there and stomp some more.
Like I said, all that stomping is gonna make you tired - but don't let it bother you 'cause that's the easiest part of the whole ordeal. The hard part comes when you want to take that rug out of the bath tub. Your 5 kilogram rug now weighs somewhere between 20-25 kilograms and it smells something like a wet goat - or a dog. And what'ya gonna do with that big old rug now? It sure won't fit into the dryer (where it shouldn't or'ta be anyhow) and it won't get dry as long as it stays in that bath tub (plus you might want to take a bath on Saturday) - so how you gonna dry it? The answer is NOT ON A CLOTHES LINE 'cause that'll stretch it all out of shape. This rug can be put in the sun - on wooden horses or a clothes drying rack or a picnic table or something else that won't allow the heavy ends to stretch out of shape (how's that for a sentence?) If you want to avoid all this hassle and still get the rug clean, just move to Turkey and hire yourself an inexpensive maid and she'll do all the stomping and T.V. watching for you.
There are many other tricks to remove odors from rugs and carpets but the best medicine I've seen is vinegar and water. This will remove cat pee, dog pee, goat pee, rug-rat pee and other type odors from a wool carpet - I've done it toooooooo many times and it works every time. I had a couple of wild street kitties I captured after a bloody battle (my blood). A male tiger and a female black panther - took a while for me to train them and them to train me - but finally, they agreed to pee in the sand box and I agreed to not bleed all over them and the carpets.
Another trick to getting odors out of rugs and carpets is to spread the carpet over a picnic table - or something else flat - and leave it out in the rain - I'm serious! Not a rainstorm, 'cause it'll blow into your neighbor's yard and that causes a different set of problems - especially if your neighbor is a grouch or has a ugly dog.
When the sun comes out you gotta get that carpet in the shade, 'cause most carpets today are colored with chemical dyes and if those colors didn't bleed when it got wet, they'll most likely start to bleed a bit when the sun dries it out. Many of the carpets we have here in Turkey have organic dyes but we don't leave them out in the sun either until they've been washed a few times.
As I said, I don't know much about synthetic rugs and carpets, but I can't imagine any situation where vinegar and water wouldn't do the job. Neither of the ingredients gonna bust your pocketbook and it'll do a lot more cleaning than most folks could ever imagine.
Now way back in the good ol' days, back there when folks took pride in construction and when they built their homes so they could also be passed along to their children as heirlooms of a sort, we had nice hard-wood floors. Today, in order to cover up the inferior flooring materials used in constructing the $250,000 cracker boxes being thrown up, folks use wall-to-wall carpet. And they brag about it. "This is an exceptional home with wall-to-wall carpeting, imitation wood door frames and a big phoney brass fireplace that's guaranteed not to rust, bust or collect dust and it'll brighten up your room - long as you don't want to burn wood or something in it!"
If you're one of those folks that's living with wall-to-wall carpeting, then the best way to get stains out is to pay a whole bunch'a money to some dude with a fancy machine to clean'em - that fancy machine will also get all that cheap pressed wood flooring wet and one of these days it'll just rot away and then they'll come in and sell you a new floor - and a new carpet. OR, you can cover up those stains with something nice, like an Oriental carpet.
Go to Dalton, GA - the Carpet Capital of the USA, and you'll find a great assortment of quality carpets at fair prices. If you don't know anything about hand-made carpets (don't worry about it 'cause the dude selling'em don't either), then you should get a machine-made wool carpet and it'll do just fine. Don't let'em try to tell you anything about the "uniqueness" of that carpet 'cause they sell by the square meter. I DO NOT have any financial interests in Dalton, GA. I don't sell carpets to anyone in Dalton 'cause I got the wrong last name - you gotta be Turkish or Armenian and have a brother-in-law living there.
Now that I've told you everything I know (and a bit more too) about cleaning and deodorizing carpets, which is probably information you didn't really care about anyway (but maybe some other folks do), all them folks who are smart about EOs agonna come on line and tell you how to deodorize that synthetic rug your cat done peed on - which is what you were probably trying to find out about all the time anyway.
They gonna tell you how to use lavender, peppermint, lemon, sandalwood and that one that smells like dead hippys (which is worse'er than the cat pee), but then that's what this list is all about. Good luck, keep smilin' and happy stomping.
Regards,
Butch Owen www.AV-AT.com
Ankara, Turkey