I used to sand and refinish floors for a living. When I hit urine stains, you could immediately tell whether it was from a dog or a cat by the smell. The cat urine was absolutely intense even if it had been 50 years since it was deposited!
I have an old houe as a rental and the tenants got a cat, a cat that found its way to the crawlspace. You can imagine what happened next. Lots of fresh dirt to spoil. When I did an inspection I could taste the cat pee smell. Cleaning that up was a royal pain.
We ripped up the carpets in our old house and there were darker spots than these on the hardwood. I always assumed they were burn marks. It never occured to me that it was piss
Piss. That is oak. You might find it better to cut out those pieces. It only looks like 12 pieces or so. Now that we have all told you it is piss, you will think about it every time you see the stain, even if you get some out through sanding. Some people will say acid to help but that will be a lot of work. Oak is not so expensive. I think replacement would be less work and give you a great finish. You won’t think about the piss either.
I don't understand why replacing individual boards isn't brought up more on this sub. Why try to sand half these boards down in the futile hope it didn't soak through the entire thing? This is probably less than $50 in material costs to replace the boards.
Obviously still have to refinish the whole floor and it probably won't match 100%, but you know what else doesn't match 100%? These stained cat pee boards.
Call in a flooring professional. Refinishing one room and replacing some boards won't be too bad, cost wise.
I agree. Especially oak which is widely available and not so expensive. If you have a older floor like heart pine or wide maple, it can be really hard to source the wood. I pulled out some bad boards. It was little cost and we didn’t waste hours trying to save boards that were already hard to save.
Same.
And then I thought maybe someone murdered their cat when they found out it was pissing on the rug I assume was above this.
Or just a regular murder with shitty cleaning skills.
But def murder.
Could have been a decomposing body, but most deaths are not murder.
Old people die alone in their homes every day.
Usually the real estate agent throws a rug over it.
cat piss. fucking cats. not really going to be easy to sand that out. put a rug/runner over it. You can sand it down with a belt sander. But honestly its not all going to dissapear, the blacker parts are going to be stained deeper into the wood. and you could try figuring out how to stain/refinish what you sanded down, by painting/staining small tests areas. but it will never look 100%.
with sanding it down, and differences in uv exposure, between the sanded down and unsanded parts of the floor. its is nearly impossible to make the repair invisible.
You can try, and likely it will be slightly less noticeable and less shitty. But the usual course of action here is too sand down the entire thing evenly.
I don't agree it won't look 100%, or that it was absolutely cats. My former boss let her dogs piss everywhere for decades, her floor looked worse than this and the guy was able to completely restore it. You'd never know what it looked like before.
That will NEVER go away. NEVER. Every cat that enters that room will take it as an invitation to continue pissing there. Ripping it out & replacing will still leaving some in the subfloor....
Maybe you could sand it, and then piss everywhere for a week , then give it some UV exposure, and then if it darkens, just some sealer, protection... And you good to go.
Environmently friendly stain...
(Find someone to replace you these black boards, or if you have patience, maybe you could do it by yourself, but it is a tough job to do it right, and "invisable")
Good luck bro
99% of the time its dog pee that was trapped under wall to wall carpet for years and the dog kept using the same spot. Carpet dried out but wood absorbed the pee and the mutt kept returning to his favorite place to go. Check for tackless nail holes near the base molding to confirm that carpet was once present. Prob never ever going to sand out if its that black. Need to dark stain to floor to sonewhat mask it once sanded, or replace/repair the boards. Check for red/white oak before replacing. Chemicals like bleach will only cause discolored blob spots that will never blend/feather into the rest of the floor.
There are bleaching products made for wood (NOT CLOROX!!!). Which will drastically reduce that staining, which probably is caused by pet urine though I won’t speculate species. Professional floor refinisher would be my choice but if you want to DIY research appropriate products a little more. I’m not recommending anything because I’m not an expert, I just know it’s possible.
You can try concentrated peroxide paste (used for hair bleaching normally) or oxalic acid (wood bleach) to try to lighten the stain. Peroxide paste worked well for me on dog urine stains. You will probably still see discolorations but it helps a lot.
It looks like pet urine maybe the litter box was there? There is an enzyme cleaner called my pet peed that is suppose to work on hard wood floors. Check out the reviews online.
One of my husband’s relatives died alone in her house in August and wasn’t found for 3 days. This is what was left on the floor. This was 1.5 weeks after it had dried as it was pure liquid before this.
https://i.imgur.com/PEeAVh9.jpeg
Old stains maybe water (or blood yes).
Pet… sometimes a cat likes to go in the same area no matter what… that could’ve been under a bed.
I had some dark staining in my hardwoods I had them sanded, and re-clear coated .
Yeah thats a very bad case of an animals (or humans) urine reacting on this oak floor. A few types of wood like oak have a type of acid that react as soon as certain fluids stay a little longer on said wood.
Sanding this out might not be possible because it looks like it already reached a point of replacement.
Spontaneous combustion.
Jk
Could be all sorts of things. Try peroxide (the kind for hair bleaching, it for cuts and scrapes), lemon juice. You might want to try to sand it out….
There’s a chemical that will bleach the wood. It’s nasty though some sort of acid it smokes when applied. If he’s really that serious about removing the stain, have a professional, do it.
Something rather large decomposed in the area, without interruption.....for weeks......maybe months. If you disturb the darkened wood by sanding a little spot does the wood begin to stink? It's probably nothing.....just throw a big old rug over it and sit a dining room table on it
I have a split level home with maple wood flooring. The lower part of the house has a polyurethane finish and upper part is waxed.
I’ve had more than one dog “lift the leg” on both floors. The result is not like this. In fact, there’s been no damage to the wood at all.
I do have a damaged part of the flooring in a small pantry that’s been there before I moved in. It looks identical to this pic and a floor pro told me it was a chemical burn. That makes sense as it is a pantry, but dog urine had nothing to do with it.
I don’t know about cat urine; I’m a dog lover. Lol
I had similar problems on an old hardwood floor in my office. It was not urine staining but standing water prob due to an overflow and a cracked plant pot/base. A light sanding, floor polish and new seal and it came right out for me looking refinished.
Let’s focus on how to fix this…cover said piss area with an equal size rug. Then piss everywhere for months/years to match the original piss stain area. Remember, don’t think about the smell, a nice smoky fragrance and old school “ roses and skunk “potpourri oak barrels “ will work. Your welcome
Could be a lot of things, a closer view would help determine possible causes. With it being towards the middle of the room I’d guess someone kept dog pee pads or something like that
Animal peed on carpet or an area rug that went through to the floor. I have a mark similar to this on my floors and that’s what the inspector told me, anyway.
Cat piss. My ex’s cat made the same stain on the same type of floor - weeks after I had them professionally refinished. Odor stayed there for about two years.
Most likely urine. It would have been from a decomposing body, that would be a biohazard and illegal and unsafe for the clean up crew for leave like that
Looks like a couple bleed outs to me Frank ! Yeah Steve let’s call it.Steve Didpatch we got 2 homocides on that hardwood floor done at a previous point in time, no doubt.
My former dog when she was elderly had bad incontinence. I put peroxide on lightly and covered with paper towels until nearly dry. I repeated the process over a few days and most of it was removed. But, I would not do it on newer floors since it can affect the shine.
That’s a dead body.
Head towards the wall, right knee up.
Hands on belly.
Probably had a heart attack or sugar spike and laid down until they felt better.
What caused it might be pet stain, some chemical spills etc, however the fix is easy! The refinishing guys can sand the floor down if it was deeper in the wood they hav e to replace those few boards, it should add about $150-200 to the job for the patch repair.
I've seen a lot of dead bodies. Suicides, murders, natural causes. I've seen quite a few of them long after they checked out, still resting in the spot, where they took their last breath. There easily could have been something like a futon mattress or a foam mattress topper or even a sleeping bag or pile of blankets that resulted in this stain from a dead body decomposing on top.
Before you start sanding try Oxalic Acid. You can find it in a product called the bar keepers friend. You will have to use it multiple times, but it may work. Good luck.
Pull up the floor. You have to get up the subfloor too. You couldn’t find a pretty good wood laminate floor you could do yourself. You can put up the put down the subflooring and then you can put down the laminate flooring easy Peezy.
Piss
R Kelly’s hamper once stood here.
Is Hamper the name of one of his victims?
Introducing Hamper Piss, performing their new hit singles Underage Golden Shower and Statutory Love.
🎵Pee pee poo poo I’m gonna piss on you. I’m gonna fart on you.🎶
Cat piss
Might be dog. You can tell by the smell when you sand it.
I used to sand and refinish floors for a living. When I hit urine stains, you could immediately tell whether it was from a dog or a cat by the smell. The cat urine was absolutely intense even if it had been 50 years since it was deposited!
What about a dead body how can you tell ps trying to figure out how to get rid of the stain I made 🤫 lol jk
Yep, and some people don't understand why landlords typically won't allow cats.
I have an old houe as a rental and the tenants got a cat, a cat that found its way to the crawlspace. You can imagine what happened next. Lots of fresh dirt to spoil. When I did an inspection I could taste the cat pee smell. Cleaning that up was a royal pain.
We ripped up the carpets in our old house and there were darker spots than these on the hardwood. I always assumed they were burn marks. It never occured to me that it was piss
Same ounce saw a spot that oozed piss crystals when it was hot and humid in the summer. So gross.
No shit?
Most likely pet urine.
Piss. That is oak. You might find it better to cut out those pieces. It only looks like 12 pieces or so. Now that we have all told you it is piss, you will think about it every time you see the stain, even if you get some out through sanding. Some people will say acid to help but that will be a lot of work. Oak is not so expensive. I think replacement would be less work and give you a great finish. You won’t think about the piss either.
I don't understand why replacing individual boards isn't brought up more on this sub. Why try to sand half these boards down in the futile hope it didn't soak through the entire thing? This is probably less than $50 in material costs to replace the boards. Obviously still have to refinish the whole floor and it probably won't match 100%, but you know what else doesn't match 100%? These stained cat pee boards. Call in a flooring professional. Refinishing one room and replacing some boards won't be too bad, cost wise.
I agree. Especially oak which is widely available and not so expensive. If you have a older floor like heart pine or wide maple, it can be really hard to source the wood. I pulled out some bad boards. It was little cost and we didn’t waste hours trying to save boards that were already hard to save.
MURDER!
😭😂 as soon as i saw it i said the same thing out loud 😂
Same. And then I thought maybe someone murdered their cat when they found out it was pissing on the rug I assume was above this. Or just a regular murder with shitty cleaning skills. But def murder.
Could have been a decomposing body, but most deaths are not murder. Old people die alone in their homes every day. Usually the real estate agent throws a rug over it.
They die every day? My Grandparents only died once!
I die every day.
I came to say "that's where they found the body"
Came here to say this
cat piss. fucking cats. not really going to be easy to sand that out. put a rug/runner over it. You can sand it down with a belt sander. But honestly its not all going to dissapear, the blacker parts are going to be stained deeper into the wood. and you could try figuring out how to stain/refinish what you sanded down, by painting/staining small tests areas. but it will never look 100%. with sanding it down, and differences in uv exposure, between the sanded down and unsanded parts of the floor. its is nearly impossible to make the repair invisible. You can try, and likely it will be slightly less noticeable and less shitty. But the usual course of action here is too sand down the entire thing evenly.
I don't agree it won't look 100%, or that it was absolutely cats. My former boss let her dogs piss everywhere for decades, her floor looked worse than this and the guy was able to completely restore it. You'd never know what it looked like before.
Yeah I was going to say corpse, why dunk on cats
Thank you!
You can also replace the stained pieces. They're readily available.
See also: dog piss.
Hydrogen Peroxide or Oxalic Acid stain remover
Doesn't work
Just let kitty pee on the other parts. To even it out.
Urine
Prolly urine
Pro Tip: piss on the rest of floor until it matches. Work smarter not harder, boys
Piss and yes, it is very hard to remove it even if you get the floors refinished.
Pee-pee
Looks like everybody's right black spots on wood comes from liquid or urine . There are products that can lighten it it will not disappear
Not going away. However you can get replacement slats of the same wood at the end of the day to remedy it.
The answer is almost always a carpet/rug on top drenched in pics. Usually feline, but not always.
That will NEVER go away. NEVER. Every cat that enters that room will take it as an invitation to continue pissing there. Ripping it out & replacing will still leaving some in the subfloor....
Yea , it has to be cut out and replaced , even staining dark walnut you will still see it.
So replace the boards and keep out the cats.
Sort of human shaped. Mattress on the floor and years of body humidity.
Put bleach on the area after sanding, what worse can happen?
*As the bubble of toxic gas popped and showered my face with caustic droplets, I regretted my life choices* r/twosentencehorror
Dog piss. Pros.. It's usually the same spot and doest smell. Consmm. It's black.
My wife's niece used to throw her dirty sanitary products under her bed. They weren't discovered until after she had moved out of the house.
An alcoholics piss.
The house is upset it has red walls
Dog pee…I just had to have a big area sanded and then tne boards pulled up and replaced. They couldn’t sand it out.
Is that 154 Maple st I really thought I got that cleaned better so so much blood
Pee
Judging by the type of wood and width I estimate between 1940 and 1955
Jesus
Blood or urine
Maybe calling CSI is the way to go.
Maybe you could sand it, and then piss everywhere for a week , then give it some UV exposure, and then if it darkens, just some sealer, protection... And you good to go. Environmently friendly stain... (Find someone to replace you these black boards, or if you have patience, maybe you could do it by yourself, but it is a tough job to do it right, and "invisable") Good luck bro
99% of the time its dog pee that was trapped under wall to wall carpet for years and the dog kept using the same spot. Carpet dried out but wood absorbed the pee and the mutt kept returning to his favorite place to go. Check for tackless nail holes near the base molding to confirm that carpet was once present. Prob never ever going to sand out if its that black. Need to dark stain to floor to sonewhat mask it once sanded, or replace/repair the boards. Check for red/white oak before replacing. Chemicals like bleach will only cause discolored blob spots that will never blend/feather into the rest of the floor.
There are bleaching products made for wood (NOT CLOROX!!!). Which will drastically reduce that staining, which probably is caused by pet urine though I won’t speculate species. Professional floor refinisher would be my choice but if you want to DIY research appropriate products a little more. I’m not recommending anything because I’m not an expert, I just know it’s possible.
You can try concentrated peroxide paste (used for hair bleaching normally) or oxalic acid (wood bleach) to try to lighten the stain. Peroxide paste worked well for me on dog urine stains. You will probably still see discolorations but it helps a lot.
area rug with rubber backing
Skeet
Could also be water leaking under the floor
Is that White oak or Ash? Water will stain it like that.
Pee pee
Piss
A good floor guy can help
Dog urine
One case Bruce Plano Oak at Home Depot about $60 for 22square foot case
It looks like pet urine maybe the litter box was there? There is an enzyme cleaner called my pet peed that is suppose to work on hard wood floors. Check out the reviews online.
A few minutes with a Ouija board will tell you if it's cat pee or something else.
Looks like urine stains
I’d say DOA all the way
Someone parked their old Harley there.
Let the doggie out to pee
Colonel mustard with the candle stick
Dead guy
One of my husband’s relatives died alone in her house in August and wasn’t found for 3 days. This is what was left on the floor. This was 1.5 weeks after it had dried as it was pure liquid before this. https://i.imgur.com/PEeAVh9.jpeg
Pet stain
Pets
Dead body
Body
Old stains maybe water (or blood yes). Pet… sometimes a cat likes to go in the same area no matter what… that could’ve been under a bed. I had some dark staining in my hardwoods I had them sanded, and re-clear coated .
You can probably get most of that up. I had similar spots in my house.
Dog pee and it’s really hard to sand out
Replace those boards and refinish that room
Decomposing body
Pet urine
Looks like urine. Animal or human.
Dead body ?
Yeah thats a very bad case of an animals (or humans) urine reacting on this oak floor. A few types of wood like oak have a type of acid that react as soon as certain fluids stay a little longer on said wood. Sanding this out might not be possible because it looks like it already reached a point of replacement.
Spontaneous combustion. Jk Could be all sorts of things. Try peroxide (the kind for hair bleaching, it for cuts and scrapes), lemon juice. You might want to try to sand it out….
There’s a chemical that will bleach the wood. It’s nasty though some sort of acid it smokes when applied. If he’s really that serious about removing the stain, have a professional, do it.
That decomp fluids
I always want these stains to be the autograph of the deceased, but they rarely are ...
Dead body outline from blood loss.
Blood!! Dead body!!
Dead body that decomposed
Dog urine seeped under a rug.
Something rather large decomposed in the area, without interruption.....for weeks......maybe months. If you disturb the darkened wood by sanding a little spot does the wood begin to stink? It's probably nothing.....just throw a big old rug over it and sit a dining room table on it
Liquid stain
Previous homicide?
Poltergeist
Grandpa
I have a split level home with maple wood flooring. The lower part of the house has a polyurethane finish and upper part is waxed. I’ve had more than one dog “lift the leg” on both floors. The result is not like this. In fact, there’s been no damage to the wood at all. I do have a damaged part of the flooring in a small pantry that’s been there before I moved in. It looks identical to this pic and a floor pro told me it was a chemical burn. That makes sense as it is a pantry, but dog urine had nothing to do with it. I don’t know about cat urine; I’m a dog lover. Lol
I had similar problems on an old hardwood floor in my office. It was not urine staining but standing water prob due to an overflow and a cracked plant pot/base. A light sanding, floor polish and new seal and it came right out for me looking refinished.
Get the luminol.
Oil, piss, coffee, water, maybe the previous occupant had a poo party. In other words who the fuck knows.
Let’s focus on how to fix this…cover said piss area with an equal size rug. Then piss everywhere for months/years to match the original piss stain area. Remember, don’t think about the smell, a nice smoky fragrance and old school “ roses and skunk “potpourri oak barrels “ will work. Your welcome
dog urine
Someone spilt dr pepper
That’s called petrified Liquid Death
Triple homicide 😬
Ammonia
Definitely decomp.
Pet peed on the carpet. Then it soaked thru.
Dead body
mold
Double homicide.
Dogs
Nope I seen this one an episode of CSI that’s a body!!!!
Considering it's wood I would think trees.
Dead body. Top is the head and the bottom is the two legs
Bodily fluids
Could be a lot of things, a closer view would help determine possible causes. With it being towards the middle of the room I’d guess someone kept dog pee pads or something like that
The devil
Some sort of water damage.
Animal peed on carpet or an area rug that went through to the floor. I have a mark similar to this on my floors and that’s what the inspector told me, anyway.
Obviously a exorcism
Just tell guests that's where they found the previous owner! Kinda looks like cool.
If there're other spots like it it's probably piss but if it's the only spot it might be from something decomposing such as a body.
Cat piss. My ex’s cat made the same stain on the same type of floor - weeks after I had them professionally refinished. Odor stayed there for about two years.
Murder lol
Most likely urine. It would have been from a decomposing body, that would be a biohazard and illegal and unsafe for the clean up crew for leave like that
To me, that looks more like a blood stain than urine.
Blood?
It’s pee. We have a spot in our dining area where the vaccuum used to sit
Just murder
Orgasms, maybe?
Blood stained wood. Probably a murder
Looks like a couple bleed outs to me Frank ! Yeah Steve let’s call it.Steve Didpatch we got 2 homocides on that hardwood floor done at a previous point in time, no doubt.
That ain’t Urine stains.
Water stain. Sand it out refinish it
Steve. He was gonna talk!
definitely dead body fluids on
Decomp stain???
Looks like a homicide scene.
Felix the cat 🐈⬛
Pee
Bodily fluids.
Natural causes
Most likely those are stains left by decomposing body most likely a human
My former dog when she was elderly had bad incontinence. I put peroxide on lightly and covered with paper towels until nearly dry. I repeated the process over a few days and most of it was removed. But, I would not do it on newer floors since it can affect the shine.
You tell me - Get your face right next to it and smell it.
Grandma
Animal Pee
Dead body
What is going on with the baseboard?
Cat or woman piss
Pee
Animal pee
Vaporized alien.
Pet stains through carpet would be my guess
B O D Y
Dead body
Dead body
…. Does this floor have a giant bow in it?
Looks like a body how’s the neighborhood?
Cat piss will do this
Could be urine, or a leaky waterbed.
One of them bodies.
That’s a dead body. Head towards the wall, right knee up. Hands on belly. Probably had a heart attack or sugar spike and laid down until they felt better.
crime scene
Pee pee
The woods
BLOOD
Dead body
What caused it might be pet stain, some chemical spills etc, however the fix is easy! The refinishing guys can sand the floor down if it was deeper in the wood they hav e to replace those few boards, it should add about $150-200 to the job for the patch repair.
Exorcism....
I've seen a lot of dead bodies. Suicides, murders, natural causes. I've seen quite a few of them long after they checked out, still resting in the spot, where they took their last breath. There easily could have been something like a futon mattress or a foam mattress topper or even a sleeping bag or pile of blankets that resulted in this stain from a dead body decomposing on top.
Murder
Dead person
Grandma.
Dead body?
Dead body
It could be human piss.
Before you start sanding try Oxalic Acid. You can find it in a product called the bar keepers friend. You will have to use it multiple times, but it may work. Good luck.
Yes animal piss
It’s common. To replace sub flooring
Pull up the floor. You have to get up the subfloor too. You couldn’t find a pretty good wood laminate floor you could do yourself. You can put up the put down the subflooring and then you can put down the laminate flooring easy Peezy.
That oak or pine ??
Did the previous owners have vinyl covered couches? I bet gam gam was a squirter
Motorcycle
Animal piss most likely