What glows is not always urine

[Carpet Cavalier]

• Got a call from a nice young couple moving out of an apartment. They explained that their landlord had blacklighted the place and found what the landlord is claiming to be cat urine in several areas and wants the carpet replaced.
• I smelled no urine when I walked in .
• I inspected the carpet with my blacklight and my nose. The carpet had huge areas that glowed but did not smell like urine at all.
• The apt dweller owns a bissell and routinely cleaned the carpet The areas looked like the cleaning tracks of a bissell being pushed and pulled back and forth across the carpet. I am thinking that the cleaner she used contained optical brighteners.
• A ph test indicated neutral 7. I understand that dried urine deposits are alkaline , that is why we use an acidic product to re liquify the urine.
• I am going to clean the carpet using tm hwe
• do you think the glow will rinse out? It would be nice if it did.

 

[carpetcleaner]

CTI has a product called Black Out that will remove all the glow.

 

[billyeadon]

CTI has a product called Black Out that will remove all the glow.

I thought they took Black Out off the market a few months after introducing it.

 

[carpetcleaner]

My mistake, I have never used it.

 

[Dolly Llama]

• do you think the glow will rinse out? It would be nice if it did.

it's my understanding optical brighteners can't be rinsed out


.L.T.A.

 

[J Scott W]

Optical Brighteners (OB) usually produce a bluish glow. Urine is likely to be yellow or green. That should help tell one from the other.

OB tends to turn carpet brown / yellow with age. That is one of the reasons carpet manufacturers don't want OB on their carpets. You may advice your customer not to use a cleaner with OB in the future.

OB will partially clean off, but probably not completely.

 

[hogjowl]

I wonder what idiot cleaner gave that apartment manager a black light?

 

[Clean Response]

Lots of other things do glow the best example it tide. A light is used just to narrow the search down. That is why I tell people it still takes a expert to determine where the spots maybe. Trying to rinse the stuff that lights up may make it not as bright but it will probably still show up under black light.

CTI did discontinue the blackout stuff a few years ago. You may be able to find a few distributors that may still have a bottle.

 

[carpetcleaner]

I just cleaned for a woman who was freaking out. She dog sat for her sister's dog. The dog did pee in the house a few times. The homeowner used something for pet stain/odor. There wasn't any stains or odor, but there was a glowing. She thought that there was urine in the pad and subfloor that was wicking up and glowing.

I explained that it really isn't possible for urine to just appear weeks after the dog was gone. I had her spray her spray and showed her that it was glowing everywhere that she sprayed. I cleaned the carpet. There was still some glowing, but was most was gone.