The smell! The SMELL!

The joys of having cats. :-) I have been complaining for a while now about the smell that has permeated our apartment. This is due to a variety of things:

• Two cats who don’t like it when we go on vacation and therefore leave “presents” for us to find when we get back.
• A litter box that is fairly clean most of the time, but sometimes goes a few days too long without being scooped.
• New upstairs neighbors who turned on their A.C., which leaked into our apartment and flooded our hallway. It took the complex a week to come fix it; in the meantime the carpet sat in water.
• Cheap wall-to-wall carpeting in all rooms of the house, INCLUDING THE BATHROOMS! *grumble*
• The good ole Southern humidity, made worse by us leaving a window open all the time and not using our A.C. (More about this later)

A few weeks ago, my brother and sister-in-law had mentioned that they were coming for a visit. Plans ended up falling through with that, but it did make me realize that something needed to be done about the smell. It’s been bothering me for a while now, and I can’t imagine how a guest not used to cats would feel! I knew something needed to be done. And since this is our last “normal” weekend until September 13th, I knew that Something had to be done NOW. Especially to avoid point #1 above.

On Saturday, Paul and I spent about two hours moving all our junk and furniture out of the living room, the dining room, our bedroom, and both bathrooms. We decided the guest room didn’t need cleaned, and the kitchen isn’t carpeted. We piled everything into those rooms, taking care to leave the guest bed un-covered so we’d have a place to sleep! (I wish we had left outfits out to wear today, but that’s another story.)

We then went to Home Depot and rented a carpet cleaner (which ended up being a bit smaller than I had remembered, so no worries about it fitting into the bathroom!). It took Paul 2 1/2 hours to do all 5 rooms, while I took the cats and went on a drive. I came back, and it looked so nice! Paul did a great job. Our carpets weren’t that DIRTY, persay, just smelly… And the living and dining room are perfect now. The bedroom… well it’s so bad that nothing will help, and the smells seem to be along the baseboards and in corners, where the carpet cleaner couldn’t reach that well. We’re going to have to attack those areas by hand, which I feel like won’t be as thorough than with a machine. They’ll have to replace the carpets when we leave, for sure, but that’s why we pay a non-refundable pet deposit, right?

We decided to rearrange our bedroom while we were putting the furniture back in. So far, I haven’t found a happy set-up for the room because it’s rather oddly shaped, and has doors and windows that hamper logical room set-ups. Our bedroom is fairly narrow so no matter which way you put the bed, it ends up being scrunched on one side of the room with a lot of space on the other. Really, this apartment is starting to drive me nuts with its floor-to-ceiling, 2 foot wide windows (essentially keeping you from being able to use that area of the wall without letting in very much light) and oddly-shaped rooms with non-perpendicular corners. Oh and don’t get me started about the bathrooms!!! For one, WHO carpets a bathroom??? And for two, WHO builds a bathroom without a door?? Our bathroom in our bedroom doesn’t have a door, which makes it hard for the mornings when Paul gets up before me, and does his morning routine (and vice-versa on Mondays, when I get up before him). I am also very tempted to rip up the carpet and put in linoleum (or whatever cheap non-carpet they use in my kitchen), and install a door or SOMETHING while I’m at it. I honestly think I’d consider it if I was planning on being here more than another year. But as it is, I’ll daydream about the place we’re going to buy, because it won’t have ANY annoyances, I’m sure! ;-)

By the way: Cat owners, I need your input! When we do go buy a house, what is the best way of having to avoid replacing our carpet every year? Is hardwood floors a good answer? (I’ve been told yes, that they’re easier to clean, but my mom insists that they stain so it’s better to have carpet.) Are there different grades of carpet that will repel moisture better? And is there a Magic Product that I can use on my carpets now to get rid of the smell and keep them from returning to that spot?