One of the cats has decided that she’s going to pee outside the litter tray. Cat Behavioural Therapy and/or a bin bag, a Nori brick and the Calder aside, I need to do something about the extant problem.

I have a Vax. It’s been used, I don’t know, a dozen times maybe? I plugged it in last week and it ran for about three seconds before tripping the house electrics. I’m assuming this is some sort of variation on “it’s a bad idea when water and electric motors are in the same appliance.” I’m tempted to attempt a repair but honestly, it was an entry-level model from Home Bargains or B&M or somewhere and it was never all that great to start with.

I hired a Rug Doctor from Tesco. It was alright but hire is thirty quid a throw and it absolutely canes through expensive fluid. I went through a full tank just down the skirting of one wall.

So, I’m open to suggestions. Is a more expensive Vax just throwing good money after bad? It should still be in warranty I think, but I’m damned if I can find the receipt or evidence of registering it at the time.

We just bought a shark one from amazon that was in sale. Used it the first time today and it works.
Not as well as one of the monster hire ones, but with a dog and an 8 yr old it is going to get used fairly frequently.
I think it was about £160 and the colour of the water and amount of stuff it pulled out of the frequently hoovered carpet was a bit worrying.

You sure you weren’t meant to dilute the fluid?  We have the Rug Doctor Spot Cleaner and there’s no way I’d get through that much just for going along the skirting of one wall.

It’s great though for, as you found, pet mess and indeed spilt tea, drinks, minging car seats, etc or even just mopping up a load of spilt water.

https://www.rugdoctor.co.uk/product/pet-portable-spot-cleaner/

N.B. look out for refurbs on their site which can be half the price of a new one.

I’m tempted to attempt a repair but honestly, it was an entry-level model from Home Bargains or B&M or somewhere and it was never all that great to start with

To be frank – with Vax thats a fools errand. For some reason they have a boggling variety of model, all very similar, all requiring different spares and consumables, most of which are unobtainable.

I think it was about £160 and the colour of the water and amount of stuff it pulled out of the frequently hoovered carpet was a bit worrying.

Back when Kirby Vaccuum Cleaner demonstrations were all the rage – the salesman would come and demonstrate the machine and pull out different filter papers and proudly tell you what gunk was was what. He did a friend’s house – showed all the filters one of which was covered loads of grey/black granules.

‘Whats all that stuff then?’

‘Errrr I’m not sure’ said the salesman

Looking at where’d he’d hoovered were depressions in the carpet where he’d sucked the elderly underlay up :-)

I wonder if Kirby still do that – how frequently do you think you could tolerate sales patter Cougs?

My criticism with this one is that it could be more powerful and leaves carpets too damp for my liking. It isn’t as good as getting a professional in and if I had carpets both upstairs and downstairs then would spend a bit more.

It’s probably this one:

https://www.vax.co.uk/carpet-cleaners-and-washers/vax-platinum-power-max-carpet-cleaner

You sure you weren’t meant to dilute the fluid?

Well, yes, but a tankful is still a tankful whether it’s diluted or neat.

The pet formula concentrate is something like £18/litre.

I’ve had good results in the past by hiring one for a deep/wet clean… best done in summer though so it dries out faster!

They get used so infrequently it might be better off hiring a decent one and buying the fluid for it, rather than spending hundreds on a sub standard one that just takes up space in the house.

I use a Nilfisk wet and dry hoover, brilliant bit of kit.

Assuming you know where the malicious, vindictive little shite has pissed then I just clean that bit. Slosh on a load of water with biological detergent in it, hoover it out with the nozzle. Repeat a few times.

We have a variation on the one Cinammongirl posted, it’s good but they’re fragile (brittle plastics) and spares are extortionate. It’s got a broken water hopper lid clip and the vacuum pump is seized which you can’t get parts for. luckily it’s a common issue which people have investigated and it’s just a bearing swap that’s needed. It’s not even an electric motor, it runs off a primary motor elsewhere.

I bet you could find a used one near you and fix it for very little other than the cost of a bearing and an hour or so of your time.

I went through a full tank just down the skirting of one wall.

No offence, but that sounds like operator error or a faulty ‘hoover’ , assuming you dont live in a mansion.

No offence, but that sounds like operator error or a faulty ‘hoover’ , assuming you dont live in a mansion.

Could be either I suppose. The machine wasn’t exactly what I’d call pristine. You get them out of a locker, I doubt they get much attention between hires.

We have a Vax spot washer which is pretty compact and useful. If you just want to clean up the odd puss piss puddle it’s quick and easy. I hire a big one for the whole house every couple of years. Thinking about it,  the big clean used to be annually so the spot washer is likely making some genuine difference.

Ohhhhh oh oh! I recently purchased this for a dog puke stain that was more than 12 months old and which I could never quite get rid of and also an odd few small spots in the living room from him too. Brilliant! The stain was taken care of quickly and the machine is easy to use and the liquid it came with will handle many more stains to come. It’s small enough that it won’t get in our way but will be invaluable living with any animal I reckon.

It’s probably this one:

https://www.vax.co.uk/carpet-cleaners-and-washers/vax-platinum-power-max-carpet-cleaner

Surprised to see you recommend this…

I’ve used the rug doctor many times, just used bio washing liquid in it. Did a fabulous job, after dumb ass here decided to lube the chain of her bike on cream carpet then give the wheel a spin….

Another vote for a Nilfisk wet and dry, copes with everything from car cleaning, workshop duties, clearing up spills to emptying the ornamental pond, sucks up 30 litres in less than a minute.

We have a Bissel pet cleaner variant, has different settings for deep or light clean. Several accessories for spot cleaning etc.

Bought it a couple of years ago, lasted well considering it gets used several times per year by us and other family members. We have to make sure the carpet is free of pet hair, thorough hoover and a scrape with one of those hand held rake things as cleaning any dog hair out is a fiddle – it comes with dedicated tools to do that, but it’s still a faff.

I should clarify,

This isn’t for sucking up ‘spills,’ ie fresh emissions. It’s dried into the carpet so it needs washing and neutralising. The Rug Doctor seemed to push fluid out and suck it straight back up again, whereas what I think it needs is soaking for a little while. I’m not even wholly sure exactly where it is, I bought a UV torch but I think it’s the wrong wavelength or something (or just cheap crap).

We had this problem once before – I had a thread on STW at the time. What fixed it was several goings-over with the Vax over a period of days, with old tea towels soaked in Vanish laid down in between passes. I thing the Vanish was more effective than the Vax, truth be told.

Annoyingly, I spent a small fortune on a Shark vacuum for her indoors for Christmas, to go along with the two perfectly useable Dysons we already have (I’m not a maniac, she’s been asking for one for three years).

As Kayjay says just use biological laundry detergent. I prefer the powder as it will, to an extent, also disinfect the carpet.
For badly stained or really smelly areas mix some of the laundry detergent with warm water in a spray bottle and spray it on the affected areas and leave it for 20 minutes before running the carpet cleaner over it.
I always run some fresh clean water through the machine to flush out any cleaning solution when I’m finished as the cleaning solution will dry out and leave a sticky residue that can cause the pump head to seize.

Just as an update here,

I got onto Vax support. They have a three year warranty – IF you’ve either registered the machine with them or have a receipt. I have neither of those things (which is actually kinda weird, I’m usually on the ball with product registration and all my receipts stay in one place in the house inside its respective product manual which I also can’t find). Vax’s response was “computer says no.” I found the transaction on my bank statements, not good enough. I went back to the store today asking if they could print out an old receipt and they said they couldn’t without even looking.

Vax has offered me a discount (of undisclosed value) on a new machine. Which I guess, on the one hand they didn’t have to do so fair play, on the other I’m tarnished on the brand when for all that it’s two years old I was only on my second bottle of fluid (the rest of which went into the hired Rug Doctor).

Is the cat doing the pee in one place. One of our four is currently piddling by the front door on the door mat. We’ve put a dog training mat down and a washable door mat – she doesn’t always do it, usually uses the litter or goes outside. Worth putting something down if the cat is piddling in one place ?

You cannot get rid of cat piss.

Just burn the house down and move.

edit. Consider ripping the carpets out. Burn them. Install hard wood floors or stone. Eliminate the cats.

I bought one of those Bissel “spot clean” machines – not cats for me: toddlers.

I feel a bit meh about it: It does the job, but just not particularly well. HOWEVER, saw a comment the other day from a “professional” saying that the way to use these machines is to use a separate spray bottle with the detergent mix in it, and then just use clean water in the machine to rinse and pull the detergent mix out of the carpet. Which is what SelkirkBear is saying I think.

Next time the kids walk something unpleasant into the house, I will try that for sure.

You cannot get rid of cat piss.

You can. I have. That wasn’t the question.

Another vote for the not quite rolls off the tongue bissell proheat 2x revolution pet pro.

Bought about 4 or 5 years ago as our cat is particularly spewy and were fed up with hiring a rug doctor/doctor rug.

The bissell gets used every few months, really easy to use and clean and looks like the offspring of Galvatron and a dyson.

I keep looking at Bissell and Vax spot cleaners (mostly for the car and the odd house spillage) but for every positive review there’s one saying it leaks or stopped working after a few uses etc. Is there a quality version of similar (as in not a full on carpet cleaner, just a compact spot one)?

We have a Vax pet spotwash as our dog was peeing on the living room carpet quite often. Not that impressed with it TBH. It does suck up a lot of dirty water, but afterwards, you can still see a different colour to the carpet – maybe it gets rid of the smell though. We spray the pre cleaner on first and leave it for a bit prior to using the vax which also has a solution in the water.
Spraying a mix of vinegar/water onto the carpet area after though has stopped the dog from peeing (smells like a chippy for a short while!)

We have cats and dogs and over the years have suffer numerous accidents and results of illness, we regularly used to borrow the in-laws Bissel now Vax upright cleaner, but it’s not a tool we wanted due to buy their size as there damned awkward to use. My better half has bought one of these spot cleaners and seems very happy with the results, I simply haven’t got round to using it, and we are more likely to use due to it’s smaller size:
https://www.vax.co.uk/spotwash-home-pet-design-plus-stain-removal-kit

We have a Vax spot washer which is pretty compact and useful.

+1 Very handy with four cats.

NB The first VAX we bought caught fire the first time we used it.

Turned out it was a  return which had a label on it saying it smelt of smoke and had been returned to VAX as faulty. They just sold it back to us. Not a very reliable company to deal with.

Faulty Vax direct from the factory! by Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

Don’t use the Rug Doctor fluid it’s a rip off. It’s nothing fancy.

I made a solution with bio washing powder and a good dose of oxi stain remover.

The bio washing powder is basically what you get if you buy that stuff for cleaning up dog and cat pee.

It gets rid of the smell and will help prevent repeat offences.

We just bought a Vax Platinum Smartwash carpet cleaner. Worked pretty well on our main hallway carpet. We have lots of small ‘spots’ from the dog. I’d say it removed about 95% of all marks with a single pass or two. The water in the tank was filthy. The hand scrubber tool was crap though. We tried to use it on the stairs and it was pretty much useless.