How to Clean Up Cat Litter On a Carpet?

You love your adorable, furry felines to pieces. They bring you such joy, keep you entertained with their mischievousness and playful nature.

But gee whiskers, they can make a mess when it comes to their cat litter.

They get it everywhere outside the litter box, on themselves, and they even trample it onto the carpets. Now you need to deal with cleaning your beautiful carpets and cleaning your cat. 

In this post, we discuss how to clean up cat litter on a carpet, clean litter stuck in their fur, and give you a few tips for preventing your cats from tracking litter everywhere.

When you share your carpeted home with a couple of cats and want to keep your carpets clean, you need to understand that it is all about the location of the litter box. 

The best area for a cat litter box is away from any carpeted areas in your home if you can. Areas such as in your bathroom, next to your own toilet, or in a laundry area separate from the rest of your house with hard flooring, if you are fortunate to have such an area. 

The reason for this is that cats will often kick the cat litter everywhere outside of the box in an attempt to cover their mess. With this action, soiled litter is collected in their paws, they then track it all your floors and onto your carpets. Occasionally, you will also find the cat litter stuck in their fur around the bum area.

When this happens, you will have the task of cleaning your cat, the litter box area, and the carpet. This cleaning task can be done in 5 easy steps.

Wet Cat Litter embedded in your carpets

To answer how to get wet cat litter out of a carpet, you should first try to remove as much of the cat litter as you can with some paper towels. Dispose of the paper towels in a trash bag, in a sealable trash can outside, and not down your toilets. If you do, you could risk clogging and damaging your pipes, as it does not dissolve.

Allow to completely dry

Do not add water or any other liquid, as this will send a gluey, sticky mess deeper into your carpets that are difficult to clean. However, if you leave the remaining cat litter to dry for several hours, it will harden, and cleaning it will become a little easier to do. 

Clean your cat and their litter box

While you are waiting for the cat litter to dry on your carpet, use the time to bathe or wipe off the cat litter stuck to your cat with diluted cat shampoo. Make sure you remove the litter on your cat’s paws and between their toes.

Once your furry friends are clean, tackle cleaning the litter box and the surrounding area. Many ask can you vacuum cat litter? 

The quick answer is yes, but in small amounts.

Vacuuming cat litter is safe to do in small amounts with a bagless vacuum cleaner. Therefore, if your cat has kicked up heaps of litter around the box, it is a good idea to pick up as much as you can with a brush and dustpan and vacuum the rest.

Scrub gently to loosen the dry cat litter

Once the wet cat litter has dried, take a carpet scrubbing brush and gently scrub to loosen the leftover cat litter.  Pick up the loose pieces with some more paper towels.

Treat the area to neutralize the odor

Next, you should use a solution specifically for cats that can remove and neutralize the odor.  These solutions are an enzymatic cleaner that is safe to use around pets, and they do not leave behind a chemical smell. They remove stains, residue, and odors of cats and dogs from deep within your carpet’s fibers.

They need time to work, you will want to soak the area and let it sit for at least 15 minutes for a quick clean or an hour or two for a deeper clean.

If you decide to use household products instead to get rid of the odor from your carpet, many of them will work, but they are not long-term solutions as they only mask the smell. Once the household product wears off, the unpleasant smell will return and the area becomes an invitation for your cat to return to and use it again as their litter box.

Another idea that will only help you remove a stain, but will not get rid of the odor completely is baking soda. Sprinkle it over the stained area and leave it to sit overnight to absorb as much of the stain as possible. Vacuum the area to pick up the baking soda and your carpets should look better.

Tips for preventing your cat from tracking litter everywhere

As you can see, cleaning up cat litter and urine from your carpets is quite a task to do. However, would it not be helpful to take a couple of small steps to prevent it from happening again?  You can use one or all of the following tips: 

• Change the place of the litter box
• Purchase a larger litter box
• Put less large pallets in the litter box to minimize the mess
• Use a tall sided litter box
• Place the litter box on top of a wide cut out cardboard piece or place an anti-tracking mat in front of the box

You Might Also Like: