How to De-Pet Your Home
Pets are great to have, but they can seriously change the state of a rental home for the worse. The tenants that move in after you leave don't want to experience the smells and messes your pets caused. Before you move out, you'll want the place in its best shape, free of scents and animal hair. Read on to find out ways to de-pet your home.
Keep your pet out
This one should be obvious. If possible, keep your pet out of your home completely and make this part of the final cleaning before you move out. If that’s not possible, then at least keep them out of the rooms you’ve cleaned. It’d be a great waste of effort to have perfectly cleaned a room only for it to be full of odors and pet hair again.
Work your way downwards
Another probably obvious tip that needs to be mentioned anyway. Working your way up would mean having to clean the floors twice, once at the beginning and then again after you’ve cleaned everything else. Since dust falls downwards, start at the top so you only have to clean everything once. This is hard enough to do without needing to clean everything twice.
Use an air purifier
Open the windows wide and run an air purifier. This will do a lot to help get the smell out of the place. This will get things out of the air, while the more deeply entrenched scents will be taken care of shortly.
Start with dusting
You’re going to need to dust the place anyway, so you may as well do it as part of de-petting. Work your way down, making sure to get as much pet hair and dander out as you can.
Read more: 5 Dusting Hacks That Will Change Your Life
Clean any messes on the carpet
You should have treated any stains close to when they happened, but it doesn’t hurt to go over them again. Carpets tend to really trap odors and look bad when messy, so treating them is a necessity.
Use odor neutralizers
Treat the carpet and anywhere else you notice strong scents with something to neutralize the odors. If you don’t want to buy something specifically for the task, a mixture of vinegar and baking soda will work quite well. You’ll want to fill a bowl with water mixed with baking soda and leave it out in the room for a couple of days to catch bits of the scent that are still in the air.
Fix things that were damaged
Did your cat scratch up a wall? Did your dog try to eat part of the house? If so, you need to get that is fixed, otherwise the cost of fixing it will be coming out of your security deposit.
Look under the bed/couch
How much pet hair and dander is hiding under the furniture? The answer is always a lot. Make sure to vacuum well underneath the bed and couch, as that is going to be responsible for more than its share of how much the place smells like dog (or cat).
Deep clean the furniture
This is especially important if the furniture came with the place, but either way, it needs to be cleaned. Vacuuming will get a lot out, while spot cleaning like you did earlier with carpet can take care of a lot of the other issues.
Get a second opinion
You are a bad judge of how good your home smells after cleaning. You’ve been living in the smell of your cat or dog for a long time now. Get a second opinion from your landlord or a friend who doesn’t live with pets to get an idea of how well you’ve cleaned the place. If it passes their smell test, then you’re good. If not, then get back to work.
Trying to de-pet your home will take a lot of work but you have to do it. When you know what you have to do, it’ll be a lot easier, so follow these steps and you’ll be on your way soon.
