Pet Odor Removal: How to Clean Artificial Grass
You installed your artificial turf, you’ve been happy with it, and then your pet begins to use your turf as their personal restroom. You clean up as best you can, but then a stench begins to form. It can be embarrassing, and it seems like there’s nowhere to turn.
Or is there?
It turns out you can have fresh smelling turf year-round with one simple solution that is sure to remove pet odor: turf cleaner. In this article, you’ll learn 1) how to clean artificial grass with turf cleaner, 2) turf maintenance tips, and 3) pet odor removal tips.
How to Use This Article
This article was written to answer all your questions about cleaning artificial turf. Whether you want to understand why your artificial turf stinks or how to maintain your turf, you can use this article to find the answer you need. If you don’t know where to start, we recommend that you read the whole thing through and bookmark it to come back to when you have questions. If you already know what you’re looking for, go ahead and click through to the section that will best answer your questions.
Content Overview
- Who Needs Artificial Turf Cleaner?
- Why Does My Dog’s Pee Stink?
- How To Maintain Your Artificial Turf
- How Do Turf Cleaners Work?
- How To Remove Pet Odor
- How We Can Help
P.S.: We offer artificial turf cleaning plans that will keep your turf smelling fresh year-round. Our TurfTech maintenance professionalshave been specially trained to use our proven processes to eliminate bacteria and odor. Make it easy and let us clean your turf. Contact us now.
Who Needs Artificial Turf Cleaner?
Anyone who has artificial turf needs to take care of the investment. It is maintenance free, but not care free.
If you don’t, then your artificial turf will fall victim to debris and bacteria buildup. When buildup occurs, your turf can’t properly drain. Bacteria will grow and it can even put your family in danger of health risks and just plain unpleasantries.
Look:
If you have artificial turf plus pets or kids, then it becomes essential to hire an artificial turf cleaning specialist like TurFresh.
With kids or pets, there will be even more buildup and debris such as hair and urine bacteria. Your pet will use your artificial turf as their personal restroom (it kind of is), and if left untreated, your pet’s urine will settle and begin to smell.
Whether you just want to entertain or have your kids (furry and human) play around in your yard, then your yard should be clean, free of bacteria and smell fresh.
Whether you just want to entertain or have your kids (furry and human) play around in your yard, then your yard should be clean, free of bacteria and smell fresh.
Here’s the deal:
With artificial turf, the only answer is to work on your lawn care: consistently clean and maintain your artificial grass.
Why Does My Dog’s Pee Stink?
Your pet’s urine will make your artificial turf stink if you don’t clean and maintain your grass properly.
Your turf will begin to form a stench because your pet’s urine will start to settle in the grass. Usually artificial turf is made to drain liquids and flush out urine, but it simply takes too much water to properly flush out. Plus, your artificial turf might not be draining correctly for several reasons (mostly due to buildup like dog hair or debris like shrubbery and rocks).
When your artificial turf isn’t draining properly and your pet continues to urinate day in and day out, the smell and bacteria will cling to the turf and grow.
The first two steps to cleaning your artificial turf are to clear out the debris and then properly drain your turf. These are the first things an artificial turf cleaning service will do for pet odor removal.
Bottom line?
These tasks are best left to the professionals, so we recommend hiring someone to help you with these first two steps.
How To Maintain Your Artificial Turf
Before pet odor begins to accumulate, turf maintenance is vitally important.
Our top maintenance tips include:
1. Clean stains promptly
Spills are bound to occur, especially when you have kids and pets running around. If you spill something like soda, alcohol, coffee, oils, or tea, you’ll want to clean it as soon as possible so it doesn’t stain. All you need to do is quickly blot up the liquid with a towel. Then, rinse the area with a solution of water and a mild household detergent. Lastly, thoroughly rinse the cleaner out using cool water.
2. Pick up pet waste
For solid pet waste, you’ll want to allow it to dry before removing it. Then, use your preferred method (plastic bag, pooper scooper, etc.) and throw it out. Immediately spray the area with BioTurf BioS+ turf cleaning products so you are removing bacteria immediately.
3. Clear debris
Make sure that you work to remove debris like shrubbery, rocks, and pet hair. Debris can build up quickly. In order to clear it, use a push broom and brush your turf. Pet hair is the biggest cause of hindering drainage.
4. Rinse your turf regularly
Regularly rinsing your artificial turf will help clear it of debris between the blades. After you’ve finished brushing off the debris with a push broom, rinse the area with water.
5. Remove weeds
If weeds begin to grow underneath your turf, make sure to pull those out. You can spray a weed killer on the artificial turf but make sure you keep your pet off it for at least a day.
6. Straighten the blades
If your turf is avidly used, especially by kids or pets, you might begin to see the turf blades get pushed down. In order to fix this, use a push broom to brush your turf in the opposite direction. This will straighten the blades back up to their perky position.
Note: Even if you’re careful and work to maintain your artificial turf, you’ll still want to hire a turf cleaner to come in a few times a year for a deep cleaning.
Why?
Although the above tips are helpful, they don’t necessarily treat the growing bacteria that can form with debris buildup and pet waste.
How Do Turf Cleaners Work?
Turf maintenance is of the utmost importance. If you follow the tips above, then all you’ll need to do is hire a turf cleaner service (like us!) to take care of the deep cleaning.
We can’t speak for other products, but our turf cleaner products work by:
- Immediately eliminating odor with a pleasant, non-toxic fragrance
- Using enzyme technology to break down and neutralize bacteria and remove bio-hazard contaminants that linger on your turf’s surface
When we deep clean your artificial turf, we:
- Rebloom the turf so it looks natural again
- Improve the drainage by de-compacting the infill and removing pet hair
- Do minor repairs such as tucking the edges, re-attaching the seams, etc.
- Do a magnet sweep to remove dangerous metal if needed (mostly for athletic fields)
- Remove weeds
- Add our TurFill Granulare infill to prevent new odors from occurring (our TurFill product is like a magnet for your pet’s urine, easily absorbing it and preventing ammonia from forming an odorous gas)
- Apply our TurFresh or BioTurf turf cleaner product to clean and deodorize the bacteria in your yard
The best part?
Turf cleaners like ours should keep your turf smelling fresh for months.
Depending on the number of pets you have, hiring a turf cleaning professional to come in quarterly or biannually may be sufficient.
How To Remove Pet Odor
What’s the real story?
The best way to remove pet odor in your artificial turf is to stay on top of turf maintenance by regularly cleaning it and hiring a professional turf cleaner to do a deep cleaning.
Finding DIY solutions can be frustrating for a couple of reasons:
- Many products don’t last for long (too diluted) and only treat a few strains of odor
- Homemade solutions, such as white vinegar, don’t treat the underlying issue (the bacteria and ammonia that results from pet waste)
By finding a turf cleaner service to take care of pet odor removal, they can use the right chemicals to fight the ammonia and bacteria and remove the debris in your grass for months at a time.
How We Can Help
For over 10 years, TurFresh has been working in the artificial grass care and cleaning industry to give homeowners a beautiful artificial grass system again.
We are experts in pet odor removal.
With our four TurfCare plans, you can keep your yard smelling fresh and save money:
- BiAnnual (10% off each service)
- Quarterly (25% off each service)
- BiMonthly (35% off each service)
- Monthly (50% off each service)
With each TurfCare plan, we will go through our 10-point service to ensure your lawn is taken care of.
Overall, we hope this helps set the story straight. Even though there are ways for you to handle turf maintenance DIY style, for those deep cleanings hiring a professional is your best bet.