On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:18:24 -0400, wrote:

I have a chance to buy a house that the retail value is 435000 for
about 300000. The place really stinks from pet urine. It's mostly cat
but the neighbor said there were 2 dogs as well as the 9 cats.

Can I fax this place for 50000???? so I have money to renovate and
make a profit when I sell it?

Very interesting reading!

I have been intentionally seeking out and buying smelly houses for 7
years now and have tried all of the fixes offered by the people who
have responded. Most have cost me lots of time, money and long delays
in selling the house involved.

What I can tell you all is that urine contamination is not easy to
fix. My own chemistry background and input that I have gotten from
Vets and a few chemists that understand the chemistry better than I do
have enlightened me to the real problem.

There are 2 kinds of cat odor. Urine, and Scent spray.

Scent spray is actually the easier of the two to remove because it
will oxidize with ozone or hydrogen peroxide or chlorine dioxide and
sometimes with chlorine or oxygen bleaches SOMETIMES If you can get to
the source. Paint, sealers, primers etc does not seal the gas produced
by scent spray in. Remember you are sealing 1 side of a 6 sided object
that breaths every time the barometric pressure changes. Second the
scent spray is always mixed with urine.

Urine residue (urea salt, not ureic acid) comes in 2 forms. 1. that
which has bonded chemically to the material it precipitated on and 2.
that which has crystallized on the bonded variety.

The crystallized version can be dissolved in water and removed, but it
must be REMOVED or it will bond when the water it was dissolved in
evaporates. A shop vac is really good for this process.

The bonded version can not be removed unless you remove the material
it is bonded to or neutralize it in place. There are obvious limits to
neutralizing in place when dealing with high level contamination like
wood that has turned black and becomes wet after being washed and
dried. There are also cases with long term repeated peeing on concrete
that the salt has penetrated to deeply that it can not be neutralized.

Because urea salt is hygroscopic (sucks water vapor right out of the
air) and when urea salt, water and hydrogen sulfide come together,
mercaptin gas is produced. This is similar to the mercaptin gas put in
propane and natural gas so you can smell a gas leak. And mercaptin
gas is produced at quite high pressure which is why it goes right
through sealers and most paint. The paint it does not go through will
blister or the gas will simply find another way to escape.

I have used the natures miracle product mentioned elsewhere and other
enzyme products and found that they often do not work because they are
sensitive to and incompatible with detergent and detergent residue
(read the box) and that includes TSP and SPIC-N-Span in spades.

Through my association with the people at my local REIA (Real Estate
Investment Association) I was turned on to a odor eliminator that
actually worked when NM and others could not. I still have to replace
black wood and baseboards made of structural foam and the really soft
pine and fur, but concrete, plywood, osb, hardwood and grout are
usually really easy to fix.

To avoid being called a spammer, email me if you want the product name

exring, I would but the house in a heart beat if I had a buyer or the
house is in the area were houses are selling. but remember, a 400k
house on the east and west coast is a starter house and will be harder
to sell in the current market, in the rest of the US its an up scale
yuppy house and should be easier to sell.

One of the tactics I have been using recently is to partner with the
seller. When their house has been on the market for a couple of
hundred days and they have had no acceptable offers, and they are
upside down, I go in an offer to fix the house for a big chunk of
money. Maybe 25% of the difference between the highest rejected offer
and the actual price it sells for after I am finished. I file a
mechanics lean on the house so I actually get paid at closing!

Always use OPM!