We once had this cat who hated our guts.
The kids named her “Cleo.” We thought she was our pet; she thought we were her captors. She was an indoor cat because I couldn’t catch her long enough to put her in the chew-proof box we purchased after she chewed through the pet carrier we purchased to bring her to the vet to get her shots. I tried and tried to catch her, but we lived in a house with staircases on both ends, and I was pregnant — so around and around we would go. She would scamper up one set of stairs, sit at the top and watch me struggle and clamber halfway up, and then -whisk!- away she would go, across the house and down the other set of stairs.
At one point, Cleo chewed a hole in the wall of the laundry room and lived inside the empty space, haunting us like a furry black demon with her scuffling noises. The only time she wanted anything to do with me is when she went into heat, when she would follow me around the kitchen, backing up, gazing at me with pleading eyes, and emitting the most pitiful yowls.
Anyway, she had one particular trick to show us just how much she despised us for sheltering and feeding her. She would sit on the futon, waiting for me to come into the room. As soon as I made eye contact, she would pee. Then she would get up and leave the room, brushing past my ankles in a devastatingly ironic pantomime of normal feline affection, just to show me she could if she wanted to.
Don’t ask me why we kept this horrible animal around for as long as we did. She was our first real pet, and I guess we figured we should keep her for the kids’ sake — although what good it did them to have a pet who lived inside the walls, I don’t know. Anyway, while she was around, I got pretty good at getting pee out of things. I made many batches of this special cleanser, and it always worked:
- 1 quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide
- 1/4 cup baking soda
- 1 teaspoon of liquid soap
Gently mix all ingredients in a non-metal container. Do not mix or shake vigorously. Saturate the stain with the liquid, and allow it to air dry (which might take 24 hours, I forget). It should smell fine once it’s dry, but you may have to do a second time. You can use this on any item or surface that can get wet — so, not wooden floors, but grout or concrete floors or just about anything else. It does leave a ghost of a mark on light fabrics, but it’s better than pee!
Oh, so one day, I ran out of kitty litter, and I had a moment of clarity about this “pet.” I opened the door and she took off like a streak. We never saw her again. Other creatures have left their mark on our house and belongings since then, but nothing ever smelled as bad as Cleo’s Anger Pee.
