How To Remove Pet Stains From Wood Flooring

Wood flooring is a highly practical flooring solution for pet owners.  Easy to clean and resistant to the day to day challenges animals put on floors, wood flooring is the perfect option for anyone with dogs and cats for example.  One commonly asked question however when it comes to pet owners and wood floors is how to remove stains; particularly urine stains on wood flooring.

Urine, human or animal can stain your wood floor if not cleaned up immediately after the little accident has happened.  The main problem with this type of stain is the ammonia present in the urine.  It is the ammonia in the urine which causes the wood to discolour and the stain to become apparent and annoying.  That said, there is also the potential secondary problem when it comes to pet stains, and urine in particular, on wood flooring and that’s the moisture it can leave in the wood.  Residual moisture left by the stain can create mold and mildew, which can make the wood go black.

So, ideally all pet stains should be cleaned up from wood flooring immediately after they’ve occurred.  But if, for some reason, this isn’t practical or possible, it is possible to remove the stain later.  The best chemical solution for doing this job is hydrogen peroxide.

Here’s what you should do:

• Wet the stain with the hydrogen peroxide, without over-soaking it.
• Soak a clean cloth with more hydrogen peroxide and lay it over the stain.
• Place cling film over the cloth to create a poultice and leave it in place for up to 12 hours.  The poultice will remove the stain.
• After you’ve removed the poultice, clean the area with a 50:50 mixture of white vinegar and water and allow the floor to dry.
• You should then use a liquid pet odour neutraliser on the location of the stain, which will remove any last traces of smell.
• Sand away any remaining stain with a fine sand paper.
• Finally, touch up the floor using your original floor stain product.

If you are in any doubt about carrying out this procedure on your floor, either test the process in an obscure part of your floor or seek further guidance from your wood flooring supplier.  If you need to remove a significant number of pet urine stains from wood flooring, it may be worth considering a complete re-sand and re-finish although this is quite a radical option.