smonster, f'real, who dropped a poor li'l hedgehog down a privy?

If anyone ever excavates the well behind my great-grandparents' house in Kansas, they will find my great-uncle Hal's ashes in an urn.

My host mom. It was eating the chicken eggs. After that, I was like, if she can drop a hedgehog down there, I can drop a tampon or three. There was a bucket for toilet paper, you see. It got burned when full.

Don't y'all just LOVE my Peace Corps stories?

I wish I did not know about the hedgehog. I may haven nightmares.

NORA. Here is the deal. Urea crystals are a bane. A porous bamboo floor is going to be problematic.

There IS a potential solution.

First, get a black light and shine it in as dark circumstances as you can. The urine stains will glow yellow. The intensity of the glow will let you know how intense the saturation is.

Mark out the areas, so you know what needs to be treated.

Get a couple of gallons of Nature's Miracle. It is the ONLY enzyme I have ever found to work.

The instructions will suggest that you mop up the fluid after a few minutes. Don't.

Leave it on as long as you can. The trick is to get the fluid to soak in. The urea crystals will keep growing until the enzyme eats them up.

This may mean that you have to refinish certain areas, but without attacking the proteins, the cause is lost.

I'm a bit concerned about the page you linked using vinegar. Neither vinegar or ammonia do any good. In fact, ammonia feeds the proteins.

Is the bamboo flooring in sections you could easily replace?

Let me know how it goes!

Not Nora (well, OK, I *am* but that's not my name around these parts) but thank you bonny. We have an old cat, and she tends to take out her wrath with an ill timed puddle or two, so your advice is quite useful.

Nature's Miracle

That's it!

Don't y'all just LOVE my Peace Corps stories?

Yes, actually.

you make a booklet of Peace Corp Stories and maybe i'll start a 'true tales from the headset' of the more amusing 911 stories

Oh, Burrell, you are so welcome. This is an enormous problem and I have tried every conceivable solution.

Nature's Miracle is great to have around for other, protein-based, stains as well. Works a treat on pasta sauce, egg, blood, animal fats, etc.

I'm super-smell averse but I really like the NM smell...which dissipates quickly, in any case.

While minor, it really is a miracle.

First, get a black light and shine it in as dark circumstances as you can. The urine stains will glow yellow. The intensity of the glow will let you know how intense the saturation is.

So we need to use the black light in the dark to figure out if there are urine stains? (Why yes, our household just got a black light flashlight, 'cos we suspect the elder girlcat is getting a tiny bit senile about the litter box.)

you make a booklet of Peace Corp Stories and maybe i'll start a 'true tales from the headset' of the more amusing 911 stories

I would totally read those.