Have you ever tried to get cat pee out of concrete? I know, it sucks. And the thing that sucks even worse is that the cat will keep peeing in the same place over and over again. Well, not anymore! I figured out a way to get the horrible stench out of cat pee out of concrete for good, and now our cat doesn’t pee there anymore!

Our Story

We live in an old remodeled farm house with a concrete basement. It’s enough room for my husband’s computer repair stuff, a workbench, and a bit of storage. But after our kitty, Storybelle, started peeing under the stairs on the concrete floor, we thought we would just have to be done using that room for good. The smell was horrible, and I had no idea how we were going to clean under the stairs short of removing each step plank by plank.

A lot of dirt had accumulated under the stairs and she had literally started using the area as a litter box for weeks before we noticed. (Hey! Things get crazy around here with four kids, one of whom is a new baby!) In an effort to get rid of the smell, we swept up all of the dirt, sprinkled baking soda over the pee, swept again, sprayed Febreeze, lit incense, but all to no avail. Not only that, but even though we tried to keep the door to the basement closed, she still somehow kept getting down there and peeing some more. If you have ever had this problem, you’ll know that cats love peeing in the same place where they have peed before!

I knew that I was going to need some more help, and so I found this cat pee cleaner online. It sounded pretty good, but I didn’t feel like going to the store or waiting for shipping. I wanted to use something that I could find in the house to clean it up. So, I started scouring the Internet for solutions, and found forums like this, this, this, and this. Since the hydrogen peroxide idea seemed pretty popular, I gave it a try, and it was a huge success! Here’s what I did.

Materials

Hydrogen Peroxide
Baking Soda
*Optional: Dish Soap
Broom/Dust Pan or and/Shop Vac
*Optional: Polyurethane (for sealing in the concrete)

Directions

Pour a generous amount of hydrogen peroxide all over the pee soaked concrete.
- You can make a mixture with 1 qt. hydrogen peroxide, ¼ cup baking soda, and 1 teaspoon baking soda if you’d like something more precise. I personally don’t feel like the soap made a difference or that making a mixture was necessary, but to each their own!
Sprinkle a generous amount of baking soda on top.
Let sit for 24-48 hours. (Basically, you want it to be completely dry.)
When the hydrogen peroxide has evaporated, sweep or use a shop vac to vacuum up the baking soda. (It is NOT good for a regular vacuum to suck up a bunch of baking soda. I actually ruined one of our vacuums during this process. This shop vac that we bought worked great; I just had to REALLY clean out the filter afterwards.)
Repeat until the smell is gone. I repeated this process two times and the smell was gone, but I did it a third time for good measure!

Other Tips and Tricks

Use a black light to see if there are any more pee stains that you’ve missed.
If you really want to seal the area up so that the cat will never be able to pee there again, pour some polyurethane on top to form a seal. A second coat would probably be a good idea too.
Hydrogen peroxide is great for getting out stains on clothes. Just mix with dish soap, pour it on, let it set, and then scrub gently until the stain is gone.