To be really really pissed off with the vendor of my house?

[BigButtons]

I moved in last weds.
I knew she had a dog. Turns out she had three pug dogs which were often let alone for extended periods.
the house was covered in dog hair- it was even in the fridge and freezer. These had not been cleaned of food debris either.
dog shit left all of the back garden.
there was so much dog hair in the carpets that it formed an almost solid dog hair tube in all the pipe work and on the rollers which I had to use a stick to push out.🤢 it looked like a long piece of shit when I finally got it out.
my bedroom has carpet- the 2 others do not- lucky them because my bedroom REEKS of dog- I mean you can smell it before you go in the room- the Hal and startles have the same carpet which also stinks.

I have used a carpet cleaner on it three times and even spent more money getting a special pet cleaner.
according to my neighbour the dogs used to spend a lot time in that room on their own- letting themselves out through a cat flap to the garden.
She could hear them barking when the owner was out.
the carpet has clearly been pissed on multiple times and there were remnants of dog shit on it too.
I cannot get the smell out. It wakes me up in the night.

How can people live like that?
I am not a crazy cleaning lady by any means. I hate cleaning, but I do it to a reasonable standard- but this?
it is a decent carpet with good bounce in it, but I am beginning to think it is unsaveable because the dog urine has been there so long.
Does anyone know a way to get rid of the smell? As soon as the carpet shampoo the smell is back.

I HATE sleeping in there I feel so dirty.
I might just pull it up and have that as yet another thing I have to fix in the house.

Do dog owners really not realise how bad their houses can smell?
Clearly she is a bit of an extreme case , but I am absolutely flipping furious.
she also took stuff that she said she would leave on the fixtures and fittings - I am talking to my solicitor about that.😡

It's true!

Nothing more demoralising than moving into a filthy house, though.

Absolutely, we bought a home from a zero pet household who had cooks,cleaners,gardeners etc and i was grateful to have a couple of weeks to clean it before moving in as it was so disgustingly dirty. I had to buy industrial degreaser from the oven cleaner man to clean the slate floor as it was like a skating* rink. The house was not like that when we viewed!

Agree with PPs that if the carpet is soaked in urine, probably needs to be replaced.
Once it's up and gone, leaving bowls of white vinegar about can be a good way of getting rid of unpleasant odours.

That’s true- she probably stopped doing anything once she accepted the offer.
she was also a nightmare to get out on moving day.
she was a bit dodgy all the way through tbh
yes I know it could be worse but I am bloody livid non the less.
I lived out of rental and I left it pristine. If this had been rental she would have lost her deposit.

I had the same problem. Ended up ripping up all the floorboards too.

Carpet is cheap to replace and have fitted. Best to crack on than waste time trying to remove odours from age old carpet, which presumably was there during your showrounds, before you purchased.

That is the sad thing- it down’s look or feel age old at all but it stinks. The underlay is thick as is the carpet.

I have never been in a house with a dog that didn't smell of the dog.

Obviously there are levels, but you can always tell if a dog lives there.

Get a couple of domestic cleaners in and pay them to scrub the floorboards thoroughly. As we are haveing good weather you can leave the windows and doors open at any opportunity for the fresh air to get in. Don’t re carpet straight away or I think you could trap the smell back under the new carpet. Hot water and lots of scrubbing, not just once but a few times will get it smelling fresh I’m sure.

Get rid of the carpet, we got rid as soon as we got dogs, it just isn’t worth it. Definitely hassle the solicitor re fixtures she said she’d leave, you could sue her, that was part of the contract.

You knew she had a dog. Everyone knows what houses with dogs in smell like

Some houses with dogs smell - usually the ones with multiple dogs in a small space or where there are a lot of sofas/carpets/beds that the dogs use or, obviously, incontinence issues.

Plenty of people with dogs have houses that don't smell.

I would always replace carpets and underlay anyway. You can smell other people in houses for a time, irrespective of whether they had pets/ smoked etc and part of that is the carpets. Best to get rid of them.

I wonder if a pest control fogging treatment will get rid of the smell? Just an idea.

I agree- if it was that bad how did you not notice it when viewing. For what it's worth I bin all carpets whenever I move as I simply can't stand living in other people's dirt and dust. Would rather live with floorboards and a cheap rug.

You won't be able to save the carpet or underlay. It will have started to rot with the wet from all the wee.
However, once you have ripped it up, you can pour neat hydrogen peroxide (i think 5% one, this is the best) or specialist enzyme cleaner (look for ones which specify urine removal - you can get huge ones from amazon designed for nursing homes etc). Treat your floorboards with this, very liberally.

I have sniffed the boards. They don’t smell thank god. Nice pine ones too- no gaps.
Am in no hurry to replace. Have done one of the kids’ room’s floor with white paint and have a shit load left over- so I might paint them white too.

It's so grim, you have my sympathy. When we moved into our old house it was heavily infested with fleas and had lots of smelly urine stains. They had cats and dogs. We had to rip up all the carpets and needed several pest control smoke bombs to deal with the fleas and copious amounts of that enzyme cleaner stuff for pet smells. In fact we even sanded the floor boards in the end. Every radiator had cat fur and all sorts of crap wedged behind it including knickers and socks 🤮. Everything was just filthy. I was so relived when we moved into our current house which was left immaculate.

Sold as seen, it’s yours now!

Urine neutraliser. In 5l bottles from Amazon. Use it 50/50 as a mopping/cleaning solution. Nothing else will work, trust me.

When we brought this house, it was a probate sale from an elderly couple with more pets than they should have had. Got rid of anything that could be picked up and chucked in a skip, and then went hell for leather with the urine neutraliser. I had it in one of those giant plant sprayers and looked like an extra from Ghostbusters ffs.
If they have had dogs I would also consider treating the house for fleas. Ask me how I found this out.

@WowIlikereallyhateyou

agree totally, SO rude.

I’ll take a look thanks
yes I have been bitten at night- I did wonder

Gripper rods too?

We viewed some doggy houses like this - the worst one had me gagging and I had to get out before we finished looking round. The stink must have been ingrained in the walls, carpets, furnishings. We could smell the vile stench clinging to us all the way home. Dog houses do Always smell, of course to varying degrees, and I guess most owners are not aware as it is constant for them.

Completely unrelated to dog stink- I went to Cook myself something for the first time yesterday and found that it is an induction job and I have only one pan that works🥴😫

I'd replace the gripper. It's super cheap anyway and may as well do it if you've ripped up the carpet to avoid treading on it in the middle of the night