Tips on Using Baking Soda for Cat Urine Odor Removal

Baking soda is a valuable weapon in the battle against cat urine odors. In fact, the properties of this substance are widely touted, if not perhaps a little exaggerated.

Browse around online and you’d get the idea that sodium bicarbonate, a compound of sodium, hydrogen and carbon, can not only whip up meals and clean the kitchen by itself, but is also the cure-all for numerous serious diseases.

While baking soda isn’t likely to manage your household for you or raise the dead, it does have certain chemical properties that make it useful in cleaning.

Baking soda in bowl

Litter Box Deodorizer

Many deodorizers that you can add to the litter box or spray in the general area only mask smells. What’s worse, they do it my produce a heavy, artificial scent that can discourage cats from coming anywhere near. It’s no good to have litter box that smells like roses and sea breezes if those scents make your cat avoid the box and urinate on the carpet instead.

Here’s where baking soda comes it. This substance neutralizes smells instead of just covering them up. Baking soda is weakly alkaline (the opposite of acidic). The molecules that create the scent of cat urine are acidic. When baking soda’s alkaline molecules come in contact with cat urine’s acidic molecules, they neutralize each other.

This chemical reaction Continue reading