Getting rid of a pungent mouse pee smell, particularly when it has infiltrated something made of fabric, can be a very difficult task. The heavy odor can last for years, never really disappearing unless you actually make the effort to remove it. But how does one remove the mouse pee smell?

It took me a few tries before I finally found a successful method (or rather it was a combination of various methods). It’s extremely labor intensive. But if the item infected with the mouse pee smell is something you want to keep badly enough, it’ll be worth the effort in the end.

In my case, I didn’t have a couch, so my aunt gave me her old one when she upgraded. Since I wasn’t ready to take it quite then, I stored it in the garage for a while. Big mistake.

Mouse Pee Smell Is Strong and Gets Everywhere

It was winter, and smells tend to go unnoticed in cold temperatures. So by the time I realized that a family of mice had been living and raising their young inside of my couch, it was too late. The smell had infiltrated all the layer of the couch. You could stand on the other side of the room and still be hit with the strong mouse pee smell emanating from it.

Naturally the first order of business was to evict my uninvited guests. So I tore off the entire back of the couch and cleaned out the mouse nests. I also had to take out all the interior stuffings. They were soaked in mouse pee, and there was no saving them. (Be sure to wear a mask and gloves when cleaning out mouse nests, as they carry a lot of diseases).

Baking Soda And White Vinegar

Once the initial dirty work was done, the actual couch fabric still stunk to high Heaven of mouse pee. So I started primitively. With the back of the couch still ripped off, I vacuumed out the entire inside of the couch. Then I sprayed the entire interior (and some of the exterior) with white vinegar.

Then I sprinkled baking soda over the entire inside and sprayed it with more white vinegar. It bubbled as it began eating away the mouse pee. If you choose to do this, make sure it won’t stain whatever fabric you’re trying to get the mouse pee smell out of. I left a fan blowing into the back of the couch to dry it out.

Once it was dry, I vacuumed out the vinegar/baking soda mix, which had formed a paste at that point. The couch still smelled of mouse pee, but had definitely lessened a few degrees in scent strength. So I repeated the process a couple more times, but was unable to further lessen the smell. So I moved onto step two.

Heat It Up

With the couch back still completely ripped off, I dragged the couch over to my wood stove. Setting it as close as I could without melting it, I let the heat run through the layers of the couch. This succeeded in lessening the smell even more, but it was still detectable whenever someone sat on the couch and “disturbed” it.

Smoke It Out

So finally I turned to incense. I’d read on a Volkswagen bus forum that someone had tried it with moderate success (and I never argue with anything that came from a forum about Volkswagen buses!).

So I tuned into my inner hippie and pulled out the sandalwood. It was a last ditch effort but it was worth a try. I stuck an incense burner and a stick of incense inside the couch, and sealed up the back. (Warning, if you try this, keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t light your couch on fire. And never leave it burning unattended!).

With the back of the couch sealed, the smoke from the incense was forced to permeate through all the layers of the couch. I left the stick inside the couch until it had burned out completely. It made a huge difference. The mouse pee smell was still there, but barely detectable. So I did it again, several days in a row.

Initially it served mostly as a cover-up, with incense smell winning over that of the mouse pee (an improvement if nothing else). But after burning enough incense sticks inside of it (about 5 in my case), the mouse pee smell was actually burned away. And eventually the incense smell faded away on its own, leaving no trace of the mouse pee smell behind. I am now thoroughly enjoying my non-mouse scented couch.

By Amber Reifsteck, The Woodland Elf

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