Carpet...naturally!

So, I think I've mentioned that the new house had a terrible pet smell problem. I have a story to tell, edited for length and clarity. :)

Tuesday I had an appointment to have the carpet treated and cleaned by a professional company. I knew they were going to use nasty chemicals, but I didn't know what else to do. We can't live in a sewer, ya know? Tuesday morning I talked with the mother of one of my piano students. She owns a furniture restoration company. "Don't have them put chemicals in your house," she tells me. "Get some Citra-Solv."

Of course. What's that again?

Anyway, I went down to the local health food store, got a $10 bottle of the stuff, diluted it 1 part Citra-solv to 5 parts water like she told me, and using a turkey baster, injected this into the carpet in the dirty spots. My parents own a black light, which enables you to see where the urine spots are. Instantly, the smell was gone. It smelled like oranges instead.

Today, we rented a carpet cleaning machine and filled it with 1 cup of plain white vinegar per 2 gallons very hot water and cleaned the carpet. It smells clean, looks MUCH better, and no chemicals. The best part? We had planned on paying maybe $250 to have the smell professionally taken care of.

Carpet machine - $25
Citrasolv - $10
Vinegar - $1.50
Bucket/turkey baster - $7

For a grand total of... $43.50. Nice.