Just closed a very nice property, Buyers were thrilled. Sellers had 2 cats and the property was viewed several times without any of the usual "catty smells" like litter box except for one time when the litter box was not clean. I attributed the smell at that time to the dirty litter box. The carpet through out the upstairs looked nearly new. No stains or marks on the very light tan carpet. The Buyers did have an inspection completed and no mention of a urine smell was noted.
Once the buyers moved in they started to smell urine upstairs and in the garage. Temperature went over 100 and the humidity was very high, Buyer contacted me and I contacted the seller, the sellers agreed to have a cleaning company come in and deodorize the areas where the buyers could smell the urine. The Buyers got a black light to make sure they knew and could show the places where the urine was present so the cleaning company wouldn't miss any of the areas.
The black light revealed urine all over the carpets, in the living room there were over 30 spots, (cat urine appears bright yellow under a black light) several large areas had been treated with deodorizing chemicals already (these chemicals appear bright green under black light). The buyers then went into the 2 bedrooms and the fireplace room upstairs and they too had many areas with cat urine. The cleaning company told the buyers they could not deodorize that many areas, it wouldn't work and it would be too expensive. With the black light the urine could also be seen on the walls and the baseboards in a number of areas. Pictures were not taken because the camera would flash. Areas where large furniture sat did not have any marks.
The carpet was removed from every room upstairs, the spots on the back of the carpet were even worse than the black light showed on the carpet surface. In one room the urine was concentrated especially in one corner and the baseboard was black on the back, the urine had wicked up into the wood paneling on the wall and rusted the carpet tack strip.
Sellers were contacted to arrange a conference call between them, the buyer and Realtor, to try to negotiate the cost of the new carpet (fortunately the wood floors below the carpet were well sealed and the urine only got down into them in a couple of areas) the replaced baseboards and what to do with the room with wood paneling.
The Sellers have stated they don't know what they are responsible for, the buyers had an inspection, they weren't aware of the cat urine when they sold it and there was no smell when they lived there.
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