How to Get Rabbit Pee Out of Carpet: Expert Tips & Tricks
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Rabbits are cute, and maybe some of the most adorable pets out there, but many horror stories are attached to them. The most popular is that bunnies can pee anywhere, including on clothes, carpets, mattresses, or floors. In fact, many people have also experienced their rabbits peeing on them directly. Yikes!
Of course, you can clean up after your rabbit until they are potty trained. But here comes the worst part: rabbit urine can turn into one big stubborn stain on your carpet that won’t go away if you don’t remove it fast enough. If you’ve lived with a bunny for quite some time, you’d know how bad it smells.
So, whether you’re preparing for this situation proactively or have already become a victim, develop an action plan to instantly remove rabbit pee from the carpet. This guide discusses some expert tips to help you eliminate that nasty smell from your home.
Does Rabbit Urine Smell Worse Than Human Pee?
Before we learn how to clean rabbit pee from carpet, it’s essential to know why it smells so bad, even worse than a human’s. Pee is the metabolic waste that living beings excrete from their bodies. It consists of multiple chemicals, primarily uric acid and urea. When both these elements aren’t cleaned, they react with bacteria in the environment to produce ammonia.
The unpleasant, pungent odor that we smell is ammonia. Compared to humans, you will find your pet’s pee smellier, and that’s not just the case with rabbits. Even dog and cat pee are way more potent than ours. That’s because human pee is more diluted with a small amount of urea. As a result, ammonia is produced in tiny quantities.
Regarding rabbits, males are often associated with more pungent pee odors than females. However, that’s not true with all bunnies. But regardless, a rabbit’s pee smell is so strong that you can easily smell it from a distance.
While the odor may be unpleasant to you, rabbits actually like it or feel intrigued enough to start chewing on the carpet when it smells like pee. Besides the scent, rabbit urine can also promote bacterial growth in your carpet, which will ultimately destroy it.
The 6 Tips to Get Rid of Rabbit Pee From Your Carpet
Now that you know rabbit pee smells so bad, it’s time to develop an effective action plan to tackle this situation instantly. If you want to clean your carpet yourself, you must prepare a cleaning solution with some ingredients in your pantry. You can also get a commercially made cleaner from the market.
Of course, it won’t be as easy as dipping a cloth in the mixture and rubbing it on the stain. So, you must know a few tips and tricks to make your efforts worth the time and resources. Here are 6 tips to help you execute your pee-cleaning plan flawlessly:
1. Use the Correct Measurements and Ingredient
You can find many recipes on the internet for removing rabbit pee. While many people claim they work, you don’t see any difference on your carpet. Why is that so? That doesn’t mean the method is faulty, but you might be doing it the wrong way.
Measurements play a significant role in making a cleanup mixture effective enough to work. Thus, make sure you’re mixing the exact parts of the ingredients in this recipe to achieve your desired results.
- 1 cup warm water
- ½ cup white vinegar
- 1 tbsp any liquid dish soap
You may be thinking, “Well, we use these ingredients to clean easy stains on our clothes. How will they remove stubborn rabbit pee?” Believe us, this mixture will easily crack the code for rabbit pee on your carpet if you ensure the right water temperature and the measurements.
- Warm Water. If you have a healthy rabbit, it will have a dark or murky pee instead of a clear one. That’s mainly because bunnies pass extra calcium in their pee in the form of tiny crystals. Warm water effectively breaks down these calcium crystals by moistening them.
- White Vinegar. Vinegar is acidic, and rabbit urine is alkaline. Their reaction results in a neutral mixture that dilutes the pungent odor of ammonia.
- Liquid Dish Soap. Liquid dish soap works with warm water to break the calcium crystals in the urine. It also removes the dirt build-up and oils from the carpet that might be causing more smell.
So, remember the correct measurements and the right temperature to make this solution work on rabbit pee.
2. Always Use a Clean Cloth for Scrubbing
Once the mixture is prepared, take a clean piece of cloth or rag and soak it in the bowl. Take it out and put it over the carpet where the pee stain is. Wait until the entire stain is completely soaked. If needed, you can use more pieces of cloth.
3. Scrub the Stain With Hard Hands
Since rabbit stains are stubborn, you need to use some muscle to get rid of them. So, scrub the rag vigorously on that area when the carpet is soaked in the cleaning solution. The warm water and liquid dish soap will break the calcium crystals into tiny pieces. Ensure you’re scrubbing the entire area properly to avoid leaving any urine residue behind.
If you can smell rabbit urine on the carpet, dip the rag in the cleaner again, lay it down, and scrub some more. Repeat the process until you stop smelling the pee on your carpet.
4. Use Baking Soda to Remove the Remaining Odor
If you’re removing fresh rabbit pee, you will be done by now with the vinegar and dish soap mixture. But if the stain is still there, you must use baking soda to eliminate the smell. This compound has been used for years in removing stubborn stains and odors from different surfaces, including carpet.
Baking soda neutralizes the acidic urine to eliminate its strong odor. Just spread a generous layer of the compound on the urine spot and leave it there for 3 hours. Then, clean the area with a towel and vacuum the area properly.
5. Don’t Forget to Clean Your Supplies
Since rabbit urine is quite strong, you must clean your tools afterward or they will stink later. If any device is disposable, throw it away. But the towels should be washed once you’re finished, preferably in a washing machine or by hand. Put the bowl in the dishwasher or use very hot water to get it clean.
6. Try a Commercial Cleaning Mixture
You can clean rabbit urine with vinegar and baking soda, but it can be troublesome, especially when you don’t have enough time. In that case, you can use commercial cleaners to clean rabbit pee stains. These products are costly, but they do the job without much hassle.
Just opt for any quality pee cleaner and generously spray it on the carpet. Let the mixture do its job for 60 minutes (or per the instructions on the packaging), and then soak it up with a dry cloth.
Our favorite enzyme cleaner for eliminating pet smells and stains is our very own Hepper Advanced Bio-Enzyme Pet Stain & Odor Eliminator Spray. It makes clean-up a breeze because it permanently removes even the very worst smells and stains (urine, feces, vomit, you name it!) from basically any surface you can imagine.
- ADVANCED ENZYMATIC CLEANER - Penetrates the most stubborn smells and stains at the deepest molecular...
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How to Protect Your Carpet From Rabbit Pee
Cleaning your rabbit’s pee is a hassle, but it can be prevented by taking suitable measures. Not only will it protect your house from the pungent smell, but it will also avoid mold build-up on your carpet or any area where your pet pees often.
- Don’t let your bunny enter the rooms with carpet flooring.
- If it’s impossible for you to keep your pet off the carpet, you must monitor their movement around the house. Just stay close to your bunny all the time.
- Keep them in an enclosed play area and spread pee pads across the bottom.
- Some rabbits are way more active than others. If your rabbit prefers to keep hopping everywhere around the house, your last option is to potty train them to protect your carpet and the entire home from the stinking pee.
Potty Training Your Rabbit
Whether you have got a new bunny or have lived with one for years, you should potty train them right after bringing them back home. That’s the best way to keep your pet well-behaved and protect your carpet from smelling bad and eventually getting damaged.
Show Them the Right Spot for Peeing
Taking a leak anywhere in the house is unacceptable, even when your cute little bunny does it. So, the first thing you’d need to do is show them where to take care of their business. Of course, you can’t punish them for peeing on the carpet, as it will only scare them. Instead, buy a litter box and place it in a private area, preferably in a corner.
Whenever you see your bunny getting on the carpet, put them in the litter box and praise them for peeing in the right spot. This process can take many days or weeks, so be patient and consistent with your pet.
Learn About Their Bathroom Schedule
You can’t always keep an eye on your rabbit to know when they need to pee. So, you must know your bunny’s schedule to manage the situation on time. Observe your pet and note the time they usually pee. Then, take the animal to their litter box around this time to quickly put them in it. This tip may not stop your rabbit from peeing on the carpet, but it will surely help you potty train them more quickly.
Make Them Comfortable
If you have just brought a rabbit to your home, it will be scared of its new environment and owner. Thus, it’s better to spend some time earning their trust and making them comfortable. Remember, potty training requires considerable time, so be patient.
- Never talk too loud to them or around them. Instead, be gentle to them even when they do something unpleasant.
- Provide them with a quiet and relaxing environment with minimal to no traffic.
- Appreciate your pet through a pat on the head or delicious treats.
- Avoid moving too fast around them
- Never punish your pet
Seek Help From an Expert
Is your bunny super active and doesn’t listen to anything you say? If so, that’s not a one-man job, and you need to seek help from an expert. They will give you tips to potty train your rabbit the right way.
Not only that, but they will also examine your pet to find the reason they don’t like to pee in the litterbox. It could be a result of any hidden health condition. Depending on the diagnosis, the expert will recommend medications to help your rabbit become potty trained.
Some rabbits also pee everywhere due to their highly active hormones. If that’s the case, the vet will recommend neutering for rabbits aged approximately 4 to 6 months. It benefits the rabbit’s health by protecting them from reproductive organ cancer. Neutering also makes your bunny calmer and suppresses its sexual behaviors.
Conclusion
Getting a rabbit’s pee out of the carpet is tricky. You need to prepare a cleaning solution and use it to clean the pee stains on the floor. Do it vigorously and repeat the process at least three times to remove the stain altogether.
If you can still smell the urine, sprinkle a good amount of baking soda on the carpet and let it sit for some time. Then, wipe the area with a rag and vacuum it. Alternatively, you can use a commercially made urine stain cleanser. Meanwhile, potty train your rabbit to avoid this situation from happening again.
Featured Image Credit: KanphotoSS, Shutterstock
