There is a high chance of coming across a bedwetting accident if you have a child, an ailing adult, or even a pet in your home. Dealing with that pesky pee stain and awful urine smell is bound to leave you wondering, ‘How to get pee out of a mattress?’
However, you need not fret as we have got your back covered. Read on to know all about cleaning urine from a mattress and its smell!
Dangers of Urine in Mattress
Foremost, let’s understand why it is essential to remove the pee on a mattress and the dangers of leaving it untackled.
- Frequent bedwetting leads to a continual wet mattress, making it a fertile ground for the buildup and growth of molds and mildew. Ultimately, you would have no option but to throw away the mattress.
- If you do not clean your mattress of urine, dust mites, germs and allergens would also breed in the wet and high humidity conditions. It would also trigger allergies in the person sleeping on that mattress.
- The strong and unpleasant smell of urine is due to its ammonia component. Not only is the smell challenging to eliminate once it sets in, but it's ammonia also triggers allergies and respiratory problems in the sleepers. It also promotes bacteria and fungus growth that aggravates health concerns.
- The carbon dioxide, histamine hormone, and natural urine heat offer a fertile bed for the bed bugs to flourish and cause sleepers' skin allergies, bites, and other problems.
How to Get Pee Out of a Mattress
Suppose your mattress has just been swamped in urine and the area is still wet; you need not fret too much about how to clean urine from a mattress. Removing fresh urine from a mattress can be a straightforward job if you have the required ingredients and know what to do.
Ingredients Required
- Laundry detergent
- Baking soda
- White vinegar
- Spray bottle
- Clean towels
- Coldwater
- Vacuum cleaner
Steps to Getting Pee Out of a Mattress
Once you have discovered fresh urine on your mattress, you need not wonder how to remove pee from a mattress but quickly get into the action with the following steps.
Strip and Clean the Bedding
Strip the mattress off the bedding immediately. Next, wash the bedding in the washing machine using laundry detergent to clean urine stains and their smell effortlessly.
Post cleaning, if you find a persisting urine stain or smell, then rewash it but this time, add a cup of white vinegar to the ingredients mix.
Blot the Wet Area of Mattress
Blot the wet area of the mattress using a towel or tissue paper to soak out the urine from the mattress. Avoid scrubbing as that would help urine penetrate deeper into it and make mattress cleaning difficult.
Spray and Clean the Wet Area with Vinegar
Fill the spray bottle with equal parts of vinegar and cold water. If desired, you can also add some liquid detergent to it. Spray this mixture liberally to the point of soaking the affected area. After letting it sit for about five minutes, blot the area with towels or tissue paper to remove the vinegar solution. Repeat if required.
Cover Affected Area with Baking Soda
Now cover the soiled area liberally with baking soda and let it sit for a minimum of eight to ten hours. After that, you can close the room to stop any pet or child from entering the room and creating a baking soda mess!
Vacuum Well
The baking soda would have dried completely post eight to ten hours. Vacuum the stained area to remove all baking soda to find all mattress stains and smell vanished. If completely dry, you can dry vacuum or use a wet/dry vacuum to avoid damage to the vacuum machine.
Repeat the vinegar solution and baking soda steps if the urine stain and smell persist.
How to Get Pee Stains out of a Mattress
Sometimes, it is impossible to remove fresh urine, which dries and stains the mattress. Removing pee stains from a mattress, especially dried ones, can be daunting, but not when you follow these steps.
Ingredients Required
- Liquid laundry detergent like dish soap
- Hydrogen peroxide
- Baking soda
- Essential Oil
- Spray Bottle
- Towels
- Plastic wrap
- Vacuum cleaner
Steps to Get Urine Stain Out of a Mattress
Make the Solution
Mix three tablespoons of baking soda and eight ounces of hydrogen peroxide in the spray bottle. Add a few drops of gentle laundry detergent or soap dish and optional drops of essential oil like lavender or jasmine to leave a lingering fragrance.
Soak the Stain Completely
Spray the prepared solution over the dried stain such that it is completely soaked to its depth. Cover it with a plastic wrap without rubbing and blotting. The plastic wrap will prevent evaporation and help the solution work optimally on the stain. Leave it for about 24 to 48 hours.
Air Dry the Area
Remove the plastic wrap after 24-48 hours and let the stained area air dry until the baking soda residue forms.
Vacuum
Once the area has dried completely, remove the residue using a vacuum. You can repeat the process a few times for persistent stains. You can also do a round of cleaning with vinegar for optimal results.
How To Get Pee Smell Out of a Mattress
More often than not, you find a lingering urine smell in the mattress after removing dried urine or even the fresh ones. Check out a few tips on how can you get urine smell out of a mattress.
Baking soda is a fantastic ingredient to neutralize the urine odors from your mattress. It has a basic pH that is excellent at neutralizing and removing the urine smell instead of masking it.
Deodorizing the mattress with baking soda is exactly the same as we use it to clean mattress stains. Sprinkle baking soda liberally over the mattress, especially the affected area, and leave it for 5 to 10 hours. Then clean the baking soda off the mattress completely using a vacuum. Repeat if required.
If you desire, you can also spray the vinegar solution as prepared above, leave it for a couple of hours, and then blot it. You can then apply baking soda and get the smell out.
How to Get Dog or Cat Pee Out of a Mattress
In contrast to humans, a dog or a cat pee has a much more pungent smell due to its higher concentration and different chemical composition. Given that, removing pet pee from a mattress is an absolute necessity. Moreover, its importance increases in the light that many pets like dogs like to urinate in the same place to mark their territory.
A dog’s urine is strikingly similar to humans, but a cat’s pee is a different ball game. It is because it has 95 percent water, some urea, and feline-specific amino acid, felinine. As a result, it does not smell initially but reeks badly after breaking down into sulfurous compounds.
How to Get Fresh Pet Urine Out of a Mattress
The process of how to get urine out of a mattress when dry or fresh for pets remains quite similar to human pee, but with a few tweaks.
Baking Soda
The best way to deal with fresh pet urine is to jump straight to the baking soda step instead of first blotting up urine with a towel, followed by a vinegar solution.
Liberally apply baking soda all over the soiled surface and leave until you see the white hue of the soda darkening as it draws out and absorbs urine from the mattress.
Remove the baking soda using a vacuum cleaner and repeat the process. Keep on repeating the process until the color of the baking soda does not change and remains white.
After this, you can follow the usual route of using vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and liquid detergent to remove the resultant mattress stains.
Follow-up With Non-Toxic Enzyme Cleaners
As already stated, pet pee stains and odors are difficult to tackle. Hence, just using baking soda might not be enough. The best way to tackle the strong and pungent odor and stain is to use enzyme cleaners readily available in stores. The only precaution to exercise is to pick a non-toxic one that lacks any harmful chemicals.
Follow the instructions that come with such cleaners and liberally spray or pour it all over the stain. Leave it to act for the stipulated time and then sop and clean it up. Then, again, you can follow it up with the baking soda process for thorough cleaning.
If possible, leave the mattress in the sun for a few hours to dry completely and eliminate any lingering odors.
The process would also help you get dry pee out of a mattress.
Use Pet Repellents
We know pets tend to pee in the same place. They can do so by smelling traces of their pee’s chemical footprint that is often invisible to us. It raises the risk of a pet-accident reoccurring.
You can quickly minimize the risk by using a pet-friendly repellent, which is readily available. You can also make one at home by mixing two tablespoons of white vinegar and a few drops of citrus essential oil with about 1.5 cups of cold water.
How to Avoid Urine Accidents
Why struggle with how to get urine out of a mattress when dry or wet? Follow these tips to avoid urine accidents:
- Use a mattress protector to protect your mattress against any spills and urine accidents.
- Wash the bedding at least once a week to keep things fresh and germ-free.
- Get a pet bed and toilet train your pets to avoid pet accidents.
- Get expert help if your child has a habit of bedwetting.
Why Use a Mattress Protector?
Using a mattress protector offers you several other benefits apart from protecting your mattress against urine accidents.
- It protects your mattress from getting anything into it: your sweat, skin oils, dead skin cells, food spills, etc.
- It prevents dust, mites, and other allergens from building up on your mattress.
- It helps keep your mattress warranty intact as any stains on the mattress null its warranty.
- The mattress protector is easy to wash and restore to its spic and span state.
Overall, the mattress protector is crucial to keep your mattress in a ‘like-new’ condition for a much longer time.
The Final Word
Most mattresses are an expensive investment. Knowledge of protecting it from urine and other spills is crucial to keeping it safe. Moreover, a fresh and nice-smelling mattress will help you enjoy deep and restful sleep, which is essential to your physical and mental well-being.
Now that you know how to remove urine stains from a mattress, we hope that you will be able to tackle any pee accidents like a pro.
