I would like to thank Art of Doing Stuff reader, Rose.
Rose, you see, emailed me the other day asking if I'd ever heard of DIY Enzyme Cleaner.
Why no! No, I had not, Rose.
But since you bring it up, now I *have* heard of DIY Enzyme cleaner. And being the kind of OCD, kindda crazy, must try all things at all costs, no matter how busy, tired, overworked I am, ... I'm going to have to make DIY Enzyme Cleaner. Even though, in the back of my mind I think it's kind of pointless, stupid, probably won't work and kindda weird.
So thanks Rose. You're a peach.
I've actually bought Enzyme cleaner before. It's about the only thing that will (help) get rid of the odour of cat or dog pee. The enzyme cleaner spray for cat pee is called "Nature's Miracle" . It does work better than any other product for cleaning animal urine, but I highly doubt this is the kind of miracle that would ever make it up for review in Vatican City.
Especially at around $12 a bottle.
So, weary from work, almost delusional really, I gathered up my ingredients, slapped on some sunscreen and grabbed a bag of chips and a pop and went out the door to work outside, taking pictures of the Enzyme Cleaner in the comfort of my backyard. I also put the radio on.
It's almost saintly what I go through for you people.
The list of ingredients is pretty small for this cleaner. That's not where the "Ack!" comes in. The Ack comes in when you realize that the DIY enzyme cleaner has to ferment for ... 3 months.
Now normally I wouldn't show you a post like this until I'd finished the product and tested it out for myself. But, I thought I couldn't do that to you. If I waited until my DIY enzyme cleaner was finished before telling you about it, that would be 3 months from now. Then if you were to make it, it would be another 3 months before you could try it. That's 6 months. That's the lifetime of most hamsters owned by your average meaty fisted 6-8 year old. I couldn't do that to you.
So, we're gonna do this together. Like a team. A fermenting, rotten, enzyme, stinking, housekeeping team. We'll call ourselves F.R.E.S.H. for short and I think we should start to think about gang colours. Probably not red or blue. Maybe yellow for urine.
Are you ready to make DIY enzyme cleaner? You could very well have everything you need in your kitchen right now. Provided you keep an ample supply of patience in one of the cupboards.
citrus peels
brown sugar
2 litre plastic bottle (big pop bottle or something like that)
Would you like to save this stuff?
We'll email you this post, so you can refer to it later.
stuff your bottle with citrus peels
add brown sugar
add water
shake and date
DIY Enzyme Cleaner
Ingredients
2 ½ cups lemon, orange, and/or lime peels (about 3 oranges and 3 lemons)
⅞ths a cup of brown sugar
4 cups of water
Method
Add all ingredients to a 2 litre plastic bottle. Replace the lid and shake everything up. Loosen lid a bit so gas can escape and put it in a cupboard for the next 3 months. Some sites say you're supposed to shake it every day. I happen to know I'll never do that, but I do plan to shake it whenever I think of it.
This recipe makes a concentrate, so once the mixture has fermented you can add ½ cup of it to a litre of water and that is your cleaning solution.
I'm going to say it once more. Loosen the lid so the gas can escape! This stuff is fermenting and becoming quite tooty. Much like yourself, if the gas can't escape it will eventually explode. Happened to an Uncle of mine once. Had to scrape him off the church walls. True story.
I'm touting this cleaner as something for pet urine, but apparently it's great for a lot of things. Most things. In fact, according to the Internet, that uncle who got splattered all over the church walls from not tooting? You could have cleaned the church with it.
So I'll meet you back here in 3 months. Spray bottle in hand, urine on the floor. Go team.
Update: Wanna hear about the results? Read the follow up post, DIY Enzyme Cleaner, The Results Show.
Lemurific
I'll collect some citrus and give it a go, although I am doubtful on how well it will match my cats pee. My friend, who just so happens to be a vet, is going to give me some stuff to try, which is supposed to be better than natures miracle. So hopefully I can run some trials against cat urine.
Leona
My goodness! All these "alternatives".
Wouldn't burning the house down work just as well? ;)
nancy
That's what I'm thinking!! Who ever said children were trouble??
Gayla T
So now I have to admit to more of my mis-spent youth. You don't have to put the lid back on at all. Just pull a large balloon over the neck and it will inflate from the gas and then it doesn't bubble over. What you are actually making is home brew. It's this vile concoction that turns into alcohol, very popular on college campuses around the world. Using citrus peels must be the masters program because you can do the same thing with potato peels. I'm sure this is all on the internet,too, but in my day it was a cherished family recipe handed down from fathers to sons. Except in my family it was from my mother to a guy I knew. Her dad owned the wholesale produce business that is still in existance today here in Topeka and left over produce plus Prohibition in the the 1930's equaled a whole new business for my mom's brothers. Now, roll this story up to the present day and you know why I just go buy a big jug of the cheapest vodka you can get and pour it all over the pee area and cover with aluminum foil. Cats hate aluminum foil and so they stay away and it keeps the vodka from evaporating too fast. The OCD and rescue animals means I use a lot of it. I know the guy at the liquor store thinks I'm a lush but at least my house doesn't stink. There is an uncut male cat that comes and sprays my front door so I have that to clean plus my Maine Coon, even though he is fixed, feels he must respond to the challange and keeps peeing on the inside. My hardwood floors are the age of the house, over 110, so there are cracks between some of the boards. I put down paper towels, pour on the vodka and cover it up and it does great. We had an episode while I was sick and didn't feel like going to the store so I grabbed the rubbing alcohol and it did the same thing and it's from the dollar store. On carpet you will think it is not working because it has to interact with the urine but it kills it and the smell is gone. Cat pee is so much worse than dog that it makes me a bit crazy but it does work and finally dries out. If you compare buying vodka to making your own home brew the home made stuff is way cheaper but while you are waiting for the stuff to ferment, use vodka or rubbing alcohol. Soak it down into the pad really good. Use plenty cause it's way cheaper than Nature's Miracle. I learned this during my Realtor days because you can't sell a stinking house. All of us told our clients about it because that was before Nature's Miracle. So, if you go with rubbing alcohol, save the stuff you are making to drink. I'm thinking they used a piece of wire around the bottle neck so the balloons stay on and just blow up big. It's only for parties when everyone is flat broke and desperate. I wouldn't drink it because it was made with garbage but basically all booze is made that way. I think that the alcohol content is insanely high and so they always mixed it with punch. I might just add that I think it's against the law to make your own home brew to drink. Or there is a limit on how much you can make. You don't want the ADT guys raiding your kitchen.
Karen
Gayla T - Thanks! I'll give em both a shot just for fun. Maybe in 3 months I'll have some sort of pee stand off. ~ karen
Mary
Thanks Gayla, I have a rescue dog tat hasn't quite figured out the potty training thing. I will have to hide the vodka from the hubby though.
Nancy Blue Moon
Sounds too icky and sticky for me..I would forget to loosen the lids and to shake..I will watch to see what happens with yours..And thanks for the onion tip you sent me..
Kasia
I'm curious about the science behind this - where are the enzymes coming from? Enzymes are proteins with a very narrow range of function (pH, temp). I suppose there is probably natural yeast on the surface of the orange peels that causes the fermentation... maybe the enzymes come from this yeast? Or are there enzymes in the fruit itself? How does the fermentation process not destroy them?
Huh. What did you learn in your research Karen??
Lemurific
The enzymes are produced from the growing bacteria and yeast. This microbes ferment to grow, similar to us breathing. There are all different types of ways to ferment. Some fermenting results in lots of gas, acid, or ethanol or a combination. The enzymes produced from these fermenting microbes probably function at a more acidic pH (you are right about the narrow functioning).
Sandy
You realize you're brewing some hooch, right?
Ann
OK-
I have to pass on the very best, cheapest, easiest, most effective way to rid anything of any organic smell. Such as cat pee, skunk, vomit, ect.
This really really works. And I use a ton of it.
1 qt hydrogen peroxide
1 Tablespoon baking soda
small squirt of liquid dish soap
Mix at time of need, since the H2O2 breaks down rather quickly. Pour over the area that needs to be cleaned. Let set for as long as you dare depending on the surface you are cleaning. Then wipe up. I have let it sit on my carpet for up to an hour so it could really soak down into the fibers and eat up the organic compounds that would be left behind with ordinary cleaning measures. For a wood floor, however, I would just let it sit for a minute or so and then mop up.
For dogs who have been skunked, you put the mixture in a spray bottle and hose the pet down, trying to leave it on the pet for up to 15 minutes, depending on how wiggly your dog or cat is!! Then bathe with a good pet shampoo and the smell will be gone. Trust me. I have deskunked my 2 dogs at least 100 times each in the last 2 years.
Also, it is good to throw a bottle of H2O2 into the wash when laundering pet bedding. Really takes the smell out, especially if you have a top loader and you can let everything soak for awhile before going thru the rinse cycle.
I have never had this mixture bleach any colors out of carpet or clothing but I sure would test first to be sure.
But this has got to beat making a mixture you have to wait 3 months for and have to be careful it does not explode!!
Kim from Milwaukee
I agree, Ann. I used this in my spare bedroom after I moved my three litter boxes out of there. One of my cats regularly 'missed' his box, so the hardwood floors got a soaking with your mixture. It worked miraculously!! I had previously used 'Nature's Miracle' and it stilled smelled. So this recipe was a godsend!
Debbie
I will get this started tonight as the parent of two small rescue dogs this could be a blessing. Thank you, for passing this on. Come to think of it, it may work on the bunny cage..............
Lauren
It looks like sangria
I'd rather make sangria. When its done you get to drink sangria YUM
After this is done, you get to clean. Oh joy
Jan
I 'm eager to know of your results,
We have had many dogs, all house-trained, but one was a rescue dog who had an undetected bladder issue.
The poor thing needed medical treatment for an underlying infection and didn't have accidents after that. He was actually house-trained but out of control while sick.
There has to be residual odor because twice now visiting dogs have tried to urinate where our rescue dog had accidents.
Shirley
Karen's absolutely right when she says to loosen the lid on that bottle so gas can escape. Here's why:
Many years ago we were a young married couple living in Vermont, about to celebrate a Canadian Thanksgiving with American houseguests. The home-baked apple pies were cooling on the sideboard in our country kitchen; the mashed potatoes, turnip casserole, Brussels sprouts‚ dressing, cranberries, and carved turkey had been placed on the table, and the guests had been called to dinner.
I gave the gravy a final stir on the stove and had just turned to proudly inspect the beautiful scene, when suddenly there was the most incredible explosion directly behind my back. We had made sangria several weeks earlier, and without thinking had placed the leftover fruit-loaded red wine in a one-gallon glass jug on the shelf at the back of the stove. A combination of fermenting fruit and heat from the turkey cooking all day caused the glass jug to explode‚ at this worst of all possible moments, embedding glass shards in the nearby refrigerator’s steel door, etching the glass doors of my hutch across the kitchen, and covering everything in the entire 20’ by 20’ room with pulverized glass dust. Very sticky, red-wine-soaked, pulverized glass dust. Everything in the room --- walls, floor, furniture, the hostess --- was covered with it. The turkey and mashed potatoes, the apple pies --- all were now inedible. Our newborn son’s changing table and every piece of his clothing, including 60 cloth diapers, was covered with the glass dust.
My husband, our obliging guests and I spent the rest of evening washing and rinsing, vacuuming, and doing laundry. We were finally able to sit down to our Thanksgiving feast of canned tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches just before midnight. It wasn’t the meal I had planned, but no-one was hurt in what had the potential to be a very serious accident and for that we did give thanks.
karenagain
OMG What a nightmare. At least no one was hurt. Your story reminded me of something that happened to my parent's neighbours. They had bought a large can or jar of crab from Costco and didn't realize it should have been kept in the fridge. They put it on a shelf in the pantry area in their garage. Well, it exploded and stinky crab went everywhere including into their open convertable.
Dennis Carr
Another thing to do - change it up a little bit.
Get a 1 gallon glass bottle. Maybe a gallon of apple cider or something.
Go to a brew shop, and get an airlock and a stopper that fits the bottle.
Get yourself a pint of the cheapest vodka you can get your hands on.
Follow directions as above. Assemble the airlock and stopper, stopper the bottle, and add the vodka to the airlock.
Swirl the bottle (don't shake, you will knock out the vodka from the airlock). You never need to outgas it.
Why does this work? Well, let's just say that those of us who make our own alcohol do it because yeast eats sugar, and emits carbon dioxide and ethanol - that CO2 has to go somewhere. This is not that different. You want the airlock to keep crud out, but let gas out - and the vodka goes in because nothing's gonna grow in it.
Candace
Am a new reader. I adore your website--it is rapidly becoming my favorite. I made the no knead bread this weekend with a bean soup, and it was the most delicious bread I've ever eaten (due to the ease of recipe--and it's genuine tastiness).
This post, however, earns you the Big Points for being one who will Try Anything. You probably ride the monster roller coasters, too.
As the wife of an accomplished dog trainer, I must say that I prefer to simply train the dogs not to pee in the house. Cats? Ugh. I just feel sorry for cat people... Cat Urine probably could be an agent of bioterrorism.
Scouty
I'm in. Could have used this last week!
Dawna Jones
Karen your a saint for trying this! To much work for me though I would rather just go out and spend the 12$ LOL!
http://www.dawnajonesdesign.com/
Erin Hall {i can craft that}
damn you are about 1 1/2 weeks too late for me on this. I made a ton of fresh lemon aid for my daughters birthday on Canada Day and had peels from about 80 lemons and no idea what to do with them so in the green bin they went. i now have water bottles full of frozen lemon juice so citrus will probably not be in my life for the next 8 months or more. But maybe ill give it a try next time i have citrus peel. I dont have pets to use it on but ill have to look up other uses for it too.
AnnW
The sugar is going to feed the fermentation, so there won't be any stickiness left. Karen, if you've got guts, you might put this in your shed. The heat might speed things up. Just check on it every few days to release the gas. Why don't you start another bottle with yeast to compare the two. For a real test you could go to an animal day care or shelter and get some heavy duty samples! Your public wants to know. Ann
Brenda j
Sounds like a recipe for corn mash or pumpkin brew. Get stuff, add sugar, let it get bubbly,bubbly Eno, don't smell just drink and stink.
Jamiek
I'm in! Will report back in 3 months!!
gollor
The fermenting of the sugars is just going to produce alcohol, and if you leave it alone long enough you might get vinegar. Why not just mix vinegar, alcohol water, and some citrus essential oils now? It works great on everything I've tried it on so far.
If you want to do it anyway use a fermentation lock on the bottle and you won't have to keep opening it.
Kim from Milwaukee
...or a balloon with a pinhole poked in it works for a fermentation lock...I use one for my homemade wine.
Karen
That's a good idea! I wonder if a condom would work. ~ karen
Leona
NOW I just peed myself. I was really doing well up til this point...
Kim from Milwaukee
Yes Karen, that's actually what I use. It's quite hilarious when it's standing at attention. :)
Lemurific
That sounds good, but you would be missing the important component: bacteria. The bacteria growing in this concoction will produce enzymes that should get rid of smells. The bacteria also eat the stuff in the spill as well. It's called a bioenzymatic cleaner.
Sarah
Thanks for your input, Lemurific.