Carpeting the house

Penny had a series of accidents in the same spot over and over again last week. Try as I might, I could not get the scent out of the carpet. I have a great carpet shampooer but it was no match for this repeated assault. The stench in the den was unbearable to me.

So Tuesday I pulled up the carpet to have a look at the pad and subfloor. I knew from previous carpet-patching experience in various rental properties that if I slit the carpet with a sharp exacto-knife, I could pull it back, clean, and lay it down again with it still looking fine. So I did. But look at what I found:



The stain had gone all the way through the pad to the subflooring. Disgusting. And you can only imagine the smell. You see, urine doesn't ever evaporate. And you already know this, although you may not have stopped to think about it. If your pet pees on linoleum, and you don't find it for a week, it will have turned into an oily substance which will continue to just sit there and never evaporate for all time. So if pee gets in your carpet, and the shampooer can't pull it up...well...ew!

In desperation, because we are poor at the moment due to me being in "retirement" I decided to attempt to WASH the carpet. I cut this 6x4 section up and hauled it into the bathroom. I shook some clothes-washing detergent all over it, took the shower spray nozzle (which is detachable, on a long cord) and began to spray. The bubbles came up. And something else came up, too. Have a look:



Isn't that revolting? I got 4 or 5 bathtubs of that stuff out. That stuff being urine. At that point I abandoned the carpet section in the bathtub for Tom to deal with when he came home from work. I poured white vinegar and water on the subfloor (which will clean wood of urine) and went to work searching the net for some sort of magical carpeting that would resist urine.

You see, hard flooring is not an option. Two of my dogs are terrified of it. Their legs aren't strong anymore and they slip and fall all the time. They won't enter the kitchen to get a treat if you lay it on the linoleum. That is how terrified they are. So it had to be carpet. But if we put in regular carpet, and Penny peed all over it again...we'd be back to square one and out $2000.

And then I found the most ingenious stuff ever: carpet panels. There are several brands, but they all work basically the same. They're like jigsaw pieces about 2 feet square of regular carpet. They have the pad built in, and they're sticky on the bottom. You just lay them all over the subfloor, and they're fuzzy enough that the lines where one square stops and the next one starts is invisible. The brand they sell at Home Depot is competitively priced with regular carpet. And the best part? If a square gets soiled, you can just pull it up, wash it, hang it to dry, and plop it back down again. Or if it's too badly damaged, you just plop a brand new one in that spot.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? This carpet is a pet owner's dream. It has a good moisture barrier (to protect the subfloor) and is scotchgarded and all that. I have one room of the house done so far. I'll take pictures of it later!