30 Years of Cat Urine Odors Eliminated from a Former Pet Store

When the Burien Pet Center in Burien, Washington, went bankrupt after 30 years in business, they left the city of Burien with an old building that smelled like 30 years of cats, and not the best part of cats.

The city bought the 56-year-old building to tear it down and make room for a new civic center with retail, residential, and entertainment spaces. Construction on the civic center was not slated to begin. So before demolishing the building, the city wanted to accomplish two other goals: make some money by renting it out and provide an affordable space for incubating small businesses in the downtown core.

The one-story building offered 10,660 square feet of ground floor space, 3,330 square feet of unfinished basement, and a cat urine smell so bad it was essentially unusable. The smell was bad. It was so bad the city knew it would never be able to rent the property in that condition. They started making calls for help. Several contractors came in to bid on cleaning the space up, and all of them recommended demolishing the building.

When no one else could promise relief, they called Clean Earth, Inc. What the city’s economic development manager discreetly described as “pet odor,” the Clean Earth expert recognized immediately as the mother of all pet odors: cat urine. “Cat urine is the world’s worst smell and hardest to get out,” according to Clean Earth. Not only is it a horrible smell, but in the past, it was nearly impossible to remove. But no more.

Even among the new generation of enzymatic odor removers, Clean Earth’s PureAyre is revolutionary. Unlike competing brands that rely solely on bacteria to manufacture enzymes, PureAyre contains the enzymes themselves that do the work of breaking down complex molecules that cause odors.

Armed with PureAyre, Clean Earth’s expert attacked the problem in stages. First, he set up a vaporizer to disperse PureAyre throughout the building for a few hours. This was just to get the smell down to a level he could tolerate working in. Next, he went in with a commercial fogger and “fogged the heck out of everything.” Walls, floors, ceilings, cracks, crevices, ducts, vents, everything. Despite the extensiveness of the fogging, he didn’t have to worry about gassing himself in the process. PureAyre is the only odor eliminator available that is made from food-grade enzymes. It contains no harsh chemicals and is completely safe.

After fogging, he mopped the entire first floor and basement with a solution of PureAyre and cleanser, using a black light to spot urine streaks on the walls and doors. It all took a couple of days to complete, but it saved the building, and the city was more than pleased. According to the economic development manager, PureAyre eliminated 90 percent of the odor problem, and cleaning the surfaces with a bleach solution eliminated the rest.

It’s a win-win situation for the city: They can generate revenue from the building and support fledgling businesses. Thanks to PureAyre, whoever moves in will never suspect its smelly history.

To learn more about eliminating odors with PureAyre, call 253-332-7420.