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So. There you thought you had cleaned that cat urine so thoroughly out of your carpet,and then after a damp day that all to familiar acrid scent once again wafts through your home. Aaaargh!

It is easy at this point to get angry and punish your cat, but please do not do that. it does not help, and you may end up with a cat that is urinating on your carpets because she is anxious.

A cat that is not using their box is doing so for a good reason. A very common, and easy to correct, reason is that the litter box is not clean enough.

Other reasons include:

A. Using a litter your cat does not like.

B. Using cleaning solutions with a strong odor around the litter box.

C. Placing the litter box in a location that is making it stressful to use, having another cat that is preventing your carpet-peeing cat to use the box.

D. A urinary tract infection. This is very common and will require a visit to the vet. As the cat experiences pain while urinating in the box, kitty may associate the litter box with pain.

Completely removing the odor from cat urine requires that the urine be completely and totally removed.

While the smell of dried cat urine may not be noticeable to us, it will be noticeable to your cat. Cats have the instinct to mark on the same spot, which will cause the behavior of urinating outside the box to continue.

Then, all it takes is a damp day and that is enough to make the dried cat urine moist enough to begin to smell again.

While there are many recipes for home remedies available on the internet, the reality is that you do need a professional cleaner that can totally eliminate all traces of urine.

To further complicate the removal of cat urine from you carpet is that the urine soaks into the padding underneath and sometimes soaks into the floor boards or concrete below.

One very expensive and cumbersome option is to remove and/or replace the carpet and padding. Another much easier option is to find the proper cleaner that can be injected into the padding to clean the urine thus eliminating the need for replacement.

The most common reasons for the urine smell to continue is:

1. Using inappropriate cleaners, and
2. Failure to locate all the spots that need to be cleaned.

It is common for the cat owner to clean the obvious spot, but how come the house still smells like urine? Could there be spots you don't know about?

A nifty, and quite frankly, indispensable tool to locate all the places that need to be cleaned is by using an inexpensive black light.

A black light is an UV light that when shone on organic material, such as cat urine, will literally glow.

Scanning your entire house including furniture, draperies and walls will show you all the places contributing to not only the smell, but also continuing to cause your cat to eliminate outside the litter box.

With the proper cleaners, being able to locate all the spots that need to be cleaned, and some insight as to why your cat is not using the box, and how you can correct it, you are assured to have a sweet smelling home again.