Saga of the Cat Mess

A couple of months ago,  I was not working in my studio (or doing much of anything for that matter).  I was using the studio room for a "just put it there for now" place.  I would go in there for class stuff then just leave piles of stuff...soon it was a pathway room.  

Unfortunately during this, there must have been a time when the cat litter box was not cleaned as it should be and Jasmine decided my handwoven rug was an OK place to urinate.  I have almost no sense of smell, so this added to the problem.

A couple of weeks ago, after I had come out of the fog, I decided to get the room cleaned and start weaving on the yardage again.  As I unloaded the piles and put them away, I found the wet rug.  This started a couple of weeks of work, and it is still going.

First I put a fan in the studio and opened the windows.  This dried the problem, but even with spray odor removers, the smell was still there.  So I got the steam cleaner and went over the carpet and the rug several times (3 or 4 buckets full).  The carpet got the fan and window open and the rug went in the garage to dry.  This wasn't enough...

Next came the visit to the pet store for their enzyme deodorizer, this was well sprayed on the carpet and the rug.  When the carpet was dry, I closed the door and window for 24 hours and the room was declared habitable by the noses in the family...YEH.  The carpet is old and very thin.

The rug was woven in the 70's and has a shag about 2-3 inches, so it was still bad.  My husband moved it from the garage, for obvious reasons, and put it outside.  However, it now attracts the local tom cats and we are having cat fights at night in the yard!!!  Luckily they don't pay any attention to the rug, they just go after each other, but it wakes me up!

 As you can see it has the style and colors of the 70's.  The rug is old, but it was the first rug I made and I would like to keep it.

  Today, I attacked the rug with the high power sprayer outside.  I was out there about an hour, we will see what that does, and if there is improvement.  Right now it is dripping wet and will probably take a day to dry...maybe I will move the fan out there to help.

On the bright side, I finished the second scarf and am building quite a bit on the cloth beam.

And the studio is cleaning up well.  I got a book on CD to listen to and I am going to try to get the yardage worked on.  It may take a bit for me to get back into the rhythm of 36" wide fabric after just working on scarves.