White residue from urine, how to clean?

[Bethstang]

Hi,
My rabbits are in a x- pen on laminate wood flooring and I have noticed a white residue left behind from their urine on the floor. I use just soap and water to clean. when it's wet the residue goes away, but you can still see it when the floor dries. Unfortunately, they don't always use their litterbox. I can't get it to go away to save my life and we maybe selling our house, so I hope to find a solution to get rid of it before the hubby sees it, yikes!!

Thanks
Beth

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

White vinegar. You can use it full strength or dilute it with water. A spray bottle works well. You may need to let it sit for a few minutes, but it should just wipe away or need a little bit of scrubbing.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

:yeahthat:It's calcium so the vinegar takes care of it. You could put down a plastic tarp with a piece of carpet over it--what my wife did when she'd take one of ours to her school class room.

 

[Imbrium]

I have the same problem and I could swear I've already tried vinegar as well as a pet urine remover with enzymes and stuff in it (the stains happened months ago; I eventually gave up and filed them away under "to deal with later")... I think the pee may have soaked in deeper than the top layer of the flooring or something >< (we live in a s***hole, ghetto-adjacent apartment complex and the apartment seems to have been built on a "crackerjack" budget, so I can only assume the flooring (which looks like wood) was ridiculously cheap)

 

[BlueMoods]

I had some of the calcium residue get soaked into a unfinished plywood floor when we were building a new bedroom and, being a nice open, empty place, I let the rabbits play in there. Ooops.

I finally got it out by first dissolving 1/3 cup OxyClean in hot water and covering the white spots with that until it quit foaming, then sopping that up and immediately dipping a scrub brush in warm white vinegar and scrubbing the calcium loose, then using my shop vac to get as much moisture as I could off the floor.

I expect putting hydrogen peroxide on the stains and letting it stop bubbling, then using vinegar would do about the same thing.

 

[Imbrium]

Oooh, duh, OxyClean... that sounds really promising; I can't believe I never thought of that! I buy tubs of it (well, a generic version ) from Dollar Tree for laundry, so we've always got some. I'll give it a try on our cheap-*ss floors later today and let you guys know if it worked!

 

[PaGal]

Anything you do try you may want to first use on a small spot just to be sure it does not stain or discolor the floors.

Also, laminate floors can "bubble" if liquid is allowed to sit on them for too long. The liquid is absorbed and makes the wood swell.

 

[maxtherabbit]

This was so helpful!! The vinegar worker to get most of it off and then once I learned it was built up calcium I got the lime away (like what you use on glass showers and what not) to get the really bad parts out!

 

[Liung]

Lahi likes to pee in the corner directly beside (!) the litter box, so I put down one of those plastic shoe trays you're supposed to use at your entry way for mucky shoes. It's saved the floor but the stains on the plastic DO NOT come off except by scratching them off with something sharp, leaving gouges in the plastic. I regularly soak it in vinegar before scrubbing at it to keep the smell and bacteria down but the crusty white calcium does not come off the plastic even slightly.

I've never had problems with stains on any other material that vinegar or Spot Shot (for carpet) couldn't handle, but there's just something about hard plastic... the corners of the litter boxes and Delilah's old cage are similarly irrevocably stained.