Amazing Pet Story
Salvaging a Former Pet Store Meant Getting Rid of Stink
When the Burien Pet Center went bankrupt after 30 years in business, they left the city of Burien with an old building that smelled like 30 years of cats, and not the best part of cats.
The city bought the 56-year-old building just to tear it down in order to make room for a new civic center with retail, residential and entertainment spaces. Construction on the civic center was not yet slated to begin. So before demolishing the building, the city wanted to accomplish two other goals: make some money by renting it out, and provide an affordable space for incubating small businesses in the downtown core.
The Cats Were Gone, But Not Forgotten
The one story building offered 10,660 square feet of ground floor space, 3,330 square feet of unfinished basement… and a smell so bad it was essentially unusable. It was bad, so bad that the city knew it would never be able to rent the property in that condition. They started making calls for help. Several contractors came in to bid on cleaning the space up, and all of them recommended just demolishing the building.
When no one else could promise relief, they called James Mitchell at Clean Earth, Inc. What the city’s economic development manager discreetly described as "pet odor," Mitchell recognized immediately as the mother of all pet odors: cat urine. "Cat urine is the world’s worst smell and hardest to get out," according to Mitchell. Not only is it a horrible smell, in the past it was nearly impossible to remove. But no more.
Even among the new generation of enzymatic odor removers, Clean Earth’s PureAyre is revolutionary. Unlike competing brands that rely solely on bacteria to manufacture enzymes, PureAyre contains the enzymes themselves that do the work of breaking down complex molecules that cause odors.
Attacking the Odor Piece By Piece
Armed with PureAyre, Mitchell attacked the problem in stages. First he set up a vaporizer to disperse PureAyre throughout the building for a few hours. This was just to get the smell down to a level he could tolerate working in. He then went in with a commercial fogger and "fogged the heck out of everything." Walls, floors, ceilings, cracks, crevices, ducts, vents, everything. Despite the extensiveness of the fogging, Mitchell didn’t have to worry about gassing himself in the process. PureAyre is the only odor eliminator available that is made from food-grade enzymes. It contains no harsh chemicals and is completely safe.
After fogging, Mitchell mopped the entire first floor and basement with a solution of PureAyre and cleanser, using a black light to spot streaks of urine on walls and doors. It all took a couple of days to complete, but it saved the building and the city was more than pleased. According to the economic development manager, PureAyre eliminated 90 percent of the odor problem, and cleaning the surfaces with a bleach solution eliminated the rest.
It’s a win-win situation for the city: They can make some revenue from the building and support fledgling businesses. Thanks to PureAyre, whoever moves in will never suspect its smelly history.
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