agbq06 said:
I'm buying a house and it has a strong pet odor. Out the gates we know rugs are being removed and I'm having every carpeted area replaced. We are also painting 3/4 of the home, including ceilings. My assumption is this should be enough with adding candles, smell goods etc. Will this be enough? Anyone have experience with this, success?
I looked into duct cleaning/deodorizing, and found a webpage saying the EPA strongly discourages sanitizing HVAC ducts as it can be harmful to your health, so I'm a bit gunshy about that now. Thoughts?
Don't listen to the snake oil salesmen in this thread.
If you want to remove pet odors and you're replacing the carpet you've got a golden opportunity to actually fix the problem instead of spot treat. Pet smells are usually in the concrete and on the low drywall/trim area, basically any area an animal can 'reach.'
For the concrete, I would recommend pulling up the tack strips and then coating the floor with a stainblocker. For stainblocking/odor sealing concrete the two best on the market are Kilz MAX and Zissner BIN. Roll it on with a floor roller and be done with it. Zissner BIN is the end all be all of odor blocking sealers, by far the best on the market. Its a true shellac. It sets up super quick (be sure to have proper ventilation, full face respirator). BIN will block the odor and will be guaranteed to work, but its expensive. $45 for a gallon, but hey you're literally squeezing bugs to get the shellac resin out of them and that isn't cheap. Kilz MAX is less than half of that price, but I've heard its hit or miss on actually blocking odors.
For the wall painting, Shellac is going to get extremely expensive quick. I would recommend an oil based Kilz product. That might be Kilz Original or Kilz MAX. If you've got bad smells don't let the painter convince you do Kilz2 or any water based Kilz product, it just doesn't have the odor blocking power.
Hope this helps.