Black light for urine stains

[LeslieG]

Is it true that pet stores rent black lights to identify urine stains? I thought I read that somewhere. I have a sick cat, and I'm afraid he's had accidents in the basement, but it's such a large area, I'm having trouble pinpointing the areas. I thought a black light would be helpful. And do they really work?

 

[epcotfan]

I don't know about renting them, but I have seen them for sale at Petsmart. Or you can find them on Ebay. I think they were around $15 or so from what I recall.

 

[SandrA9810]

They're cheap enough to just buy. They do sell CFL bulbs that are black lights at Home Depot for about 5$ a piece. They sell several colors as well.

 

[LeslieG]

I have a small one that came with a bottle of Urine Gone, but it doesn't seem to work very well. I thought maybe I needed something larger?

 

[arminnie]

I have a small one that came with a bottle of Urine Gone, but it doesn't seem to work very well. I thought maybe I needed something larger?

Me too. It didn't work at all. I knew where the dog had just gone - but it still didn't show up. Ended up removing all the carpet. The dog has since passed on from old age.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

You have to have a UV light. If you're old enough to remember psychadelic posters - the lights that made the weird colors show up were UV or black lights. The "black light" bulbs that you screw into a regular light fixture are incandescent black lights, you won't see anything fluouresce with those.

I have two UV black lights and I can vouch that they work beautifully. You must have a perfectly dark room, as black as you can get it. Any light at all in the room and you won't see anything, but in a dark room pee fluouresces quite vividly.

You can buy a big one from Wal-mart for about $15 to $20. It will be a long fluourescent bulb contraption over in the lighting aisle. Wait until dark, or darken the room, turn off all the lights, turn on the black light and oh yeah. You'll see pee stains.

 

[Northstar]

I have two UV black lights and I can vouch that they work beautifully. You must have a perfectly dark room, as black as you can get it. Any light at all in the room and you won't see anything, but in a dark room pee fluouresces quite vividly.

Tagworthy! Is there a fairy in the house...

 

[Sarah_Rose]

I'm guessing this won't work if the carpet has been cleaned? I've cleaned the living room carpet twice and I still smell pee.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

I'm guessing this won't work if the carpet has been cleaned? I've cleaned the living room carpet twice and I still smell pee.

The black light will still show the original stain, generally, in those cases. However, you will need to vary your approach on cleaning, in this case. If the stain is older, the smell has set in. I reccomend vinegar for these kinds of smells. I don't know of anything else that even tries to neutralize old pee.

 

[bicker]

We have one. It works great. Note that you'll see different colors for different kinds of organics. Urine is one color; vomit (we have a cat with what must be the feline version of IBS) is another color - and if you've spilled food on your floor at some point, it might also show up (no idea why).

 

[LeslieG]

Does it matter what color your carpet is? I have a deep green carpet, and I can't see anything.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Does it matter what color your carpet is? I have a deep green carpet, and I can't see anything.

It's possible they are blending in. I've never used it on a green carpet, but I did use it on a multicolored, patterned carpet from the early 1970's once, and I could still see the pee stains.