When you have to travel frequently with your infant or beloved pet, you will often come across pee-in car seat-like accidents. So you must be handy at how to get pee out of car seat, right?
The cleaning should be done as soon as possible to avoid lingering the ammonia stench in a car-like confined place. Read below to know some useful ingredients and methods to get the urine smell out of car seat.
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How to Get Pee Out of Car Seats? Quick and General Tip!
How to get pee out of car seat? To quickly get pee out of car seats, you have to:
“Take a tablespoon of white vinegar and mix it with a tablespoon of liquid soap and water. Add the mixture to a spray bottle. Spray the mixture on the peed surface, scrub with a piece of cloth and wipe with a damp cloth to get off the foam scum”
How to Clean Urine from Car Seat?
The ease in how to clean urine from car seats depends upon the fabric of the baby car seat. However, generally, it involves blotting out urine followed by cleaning and drying the car seat.
Things Required:
Cleaning agents and materials will vary depending upon the fabric/cloth or leather seats that can vary among the best car seat brands.
For Cloth Car Seats:
- White Vinegar
- Dish Wash Soap
- Cloths
- Gloves
- Bowl/Bucket
- Absorbent Paper/Towel
- Water
Steps in How to Get Pee Out of Car Seat? For Cloth Car Seats
How to get pee out of car seat involves just 5 five steps that you can do on your own:
Step#1: Get Prepared First
Preparatory steps involve wearing gloves as the vinegar is acidic and can cause itching and damage to skin tissues. Second thing is to open the car doors to let the smell get out of the car seat.
Step#2: Prepare the Cleaning Mixture
To prepare the cleaning mixture, you have to mix the white vinegar (1 tablespoon or 15mL), and liquid dish wash (1 tablespoon or 15mL) in 2 cups of cold water.
Step#3: Blotting Out the Urine Stain
Take a piece of cloth, dip it in the cleaning mixture, and gently dab the stained area.
Note: do it gently and don’t soak the cloth into the cleaning mix as it will soak the car seat more. Start dabbing from the edges of the stain and bring it to the center to help prevent the stain from spreading.
Step#4: Dry the Car Seat
Take the dry piece of cloth and keep cleaning and dabbing over the stained area until it becomes invisible.
Note: if the stain doesn’t disappear even after multiple applications of the cleaning agents and drying, apply a few drops of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide or Ammonia and repeat steps number 3 and 4.
Step#5: Air Dry the Car Seat:
Although the car seat has been dried still, air drying of the car seat will take off all the urine smell.
For Leather Car Seats:
- Deep Cleaner (specific for leather cleaning)
- Enzyme-based Cleaner
- Gloves
- Sponge/Pad
- Bowl/Bucket
- Absorbent Paper/Towel
- Water
Steps in How to Get Pee Out of Car Seat? For Leather Car Seats
Leather car seats in comparison to cloth car seats seem to be less absorbent but they will smell the same if not cleaned properly. Follow the below steps to get to know how to get pee out of car seat?
Step#1: Blot the Urine Out of the Car Seat
The first step is to blot out the urine with an absorbent paper towel. Avoid wiping and work from the edges of the stained area bringing it into the center to not let the stain spread too much.
Step#2: Empty the Car Seat
Unzip the leather car seat to take out stuffing/filling from it and smell to check if the urine has been seeped into it or not.
Note: if your car seat doesn’t have a zip, you should clean the urine quickly to not let it go inside the stuffing.
Step#3: Clean it with a Specific Leather Cleaner
Apply a little of the cleaning mixture to the sponge and clean the stained area with it.
Note: in leather car seats, we prefer to clean the whole car seat instead of just cleaning the stained area because it leaves a marked area/water stain on the seat.
Step#4: Hand-Wash Leather Car Seat Stuffing
Using an enzyme-based cleaner is effective especially if the car seat has a cat pee stain. Because it will have the capability to dissolve the uric acid present in the pees of pets.
Step#5: Thoroughly Dry the Car Seat Leather and Stuffing
Air dry the leather part in a cool and shady place while air dries the stuffing under the sun.
For visual assistance regarding cleaning a baby car seat made of leather, you can watch the linked video:
Being frequently traveling parents, you must have cleaning spray or solutions in the car because you might need it with kids and pets with you.
Related: Can dogs sit in the front seat?
How to Get Pee Smell Out of Car Seat? Try Out Some DIY Tips
The urine of a child or a pet is smelly due to the various waste and filtered products in it. In confined places like cars, the smell of urine becomes unbearable.
How to get pee smell out of car seat? Try out the following substances to get urine smell out of car seat.
Enzyme Cleaner
Enzyme cleaners have dual functions: they absorb the foul smell of urine and ingest the pee stains as well.
Note: use an enzyme cleaner that is recommended by your car seat manufacturer only.
Bread
Bread (the same that you used to make sandwiches!) is a good absorbent of mild smells like pee over car seats. Keep a bread slice over the peed area overnight and enjoy an odorless car seat in the morning.
Baking Soda
Cover the stained area with baking soda and keep it overnight. Within 12-15 hours, it will absorb the stain and smell of urine.
Vinegar
Vinegar is non-effective (infant-car seat friendly) and has frequently been used in cleaning household items. You can also clean the urine stain from the baby car seat with it.
Essential Oils
Essential oils like lemon oil, peppermint, cinnamon, or eucalyptus oil all have cleaning properties. You might have one of them in your house.
You have to mix it with vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda to make an excellent car seat cleaning agent.
Charcoal
Charcoal is considered an old treatment for foul smells. You can keep a handful of charcoal in a bowl in the car overnight to let it absorbs the bad ammonia-like stench.
Few Things to Keep in Mind Before Cleaning Urine from Car Seat
There are 4 types of car seats by age that you will buy throughout the car seat period of your child. Knowing some easy tricks to maintain a car seat will assist you in long run.
- Always wear rubber gloves before cleaning and wash hands properly after cleaning urine from car seat
- Try to clean the pee as soon as possible so that the car stuffing will absorb the minimum
- Kids are fragile, their immune system is not so strong to withstand the germs and unsanitary conditions. Therefore, it is essential to clean their car seat from urine stains and smell as soon as possible.
- Never use an expired car seat as it is a risk to your child’s safety.
Then what to do with old car seats? You can donate or trade in your old car seats to Walmart or Target. Click the below links to know more about trading your old car seats.
Conclusion
Kids (and the pet too!) are unpredictable. They will unimaginably surprise you so keep the peace if they used to pee n their car seats (as it is very common).
The only thing that you can do is to know the various DIY ways how to get pee out of car seat that we have mentioned above.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to clean urine from car upholstery?
How to clean urine from car upholstery is a very 5 3 steps process. Make a cleaning solution by mixing vinegar (1 tablespoon), and dish wash (1 tablespoon) in water and clean the stained area with a piece of cloth.
How to remove urine smell from car seat?
You can use an enzyme cleaner, baking soda, vinegar, bread slice, or charcoal to effectively remove the urine smell from car seat.
How to clean cat pee on car seat?
For cleaning cat pee, you should use an enzyme cleaner (recommended by the car seat manufacturer). The cat pee has uric acid in it that will be dissolved by the enzyme cleaner.
How to remove urine smell from car seat?
You can use essential oils (lemon, eucalyptus, cinnamon, etc.), charcoal, baking soda, etc. to remove the urine smell from car seat. You can keep charcoal in a bowl, baking soda on the urine stain, and essential in the car with the open lid to let them absorb foul smells from the car.
