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RatsForever

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2007
Messages
1,221
Location
New Brunswick
Hello,

I sincerely apologize if a similar thread has been posted before - I did a search but perhaps I missed it somewhere. Besides, cleaning my rat cage everyday people complain it smells. People who come into my place say it stinks and some say they smell urine, which greatly concerns me! I have five rats in a 24"L x 24"W x 37"H ferret cage, with three litter pans and I use vinegar, water, and peroxide to clean the cage. I live in a small apartment, and although I don't think my rats stink, I am scared the smell is going in the hallway (which is very small with three other apartments) and there may be complaints. I'm at loss because I try to keep the cage very clean. Any suggestions?

Thank you for your time,

Cheers, Linda
 
When you enter your apartment do you find it smells?
Wondering, as many people will smell rats stinking once they are aware you have rats, no matter what the rats smell like.
And some people are also acutely sensitive to odors.

I find that a hepa filter (type is based on room size) helps with odor.
 
What sort of cage do you have? Is it galvanized, powder coated, PVC coated? How long have you had it? How are you cleaning it? Do you just wipe it down, do you haul it into the shower and scrub it..? What do you use to scrub it? Do you have males or females? Are they all intact? What sort of bedding do you use? Do you have any wooden/paper/cardboard/rope toys that could have gotten peed on? When you clean the cage, do you wipe down the walls/floors around the cage in case any pee dribbled out?

Galvanized cages will hold on to that funky urine smell no matter how often you clean it. Even with powder coated and PVC coated cages, if the coating chips off in places it gets to the galvanized wire underneath and can really reek. Where shelves and ramps attach the pee can sometimes start to cake and build up. Depending on how your cage is assembled, you may need to use something like a toothbrush to get in there really well, or even dismantle the whole thing for a very thorough scrub/soak.

Also, cleaning too often can be just as detrimental as not cleaning often enough. Rats like their homes to smell like them. Intact males will often go on a marking spree, and some females have been known to do it as well. They get all in a rush to make everything smell like them that it can get a little overpowering very quickly.

As SQ said, if you notice a smell when you first come in to your apartment after being gone for a while, then there may need to be adjustments to something. If you don't notice anything in particular, then it may just be your friends not being used to rats. Girls tend to smell like grape soda, boys like corn chips. I've noticed more people complain about a male's natural Frito scent, mistaking it for general funk or bad cleaning practices. Most people who own males think it's divine, heh.
 
Thank you for the great information!

My cage is powder coated. Normally, I wipe it down with vinegar, water, and peroxide and if time permits, once a week I drag the cage into the bathtub and give it a good scrub. For bedding, I use shredded paper or fleece blanket which I change everyday. I rotate toys – meaning I toss wooden or rope toys when they begin to smell. Yup, I do wash the walls and floor around the cage. The gentlemen are neutered and the ladies are spayed. Most of the time I clean the cage first thing in the morning before I leave for work and when I return (some 12 hours later) personally I do not smell anything when I come through the door. I just grabbed each one of my rats and sniffed them (plus gave them belly kisses) and they don’t smell of urine at all. Perhaps, you are right; my friends are just not use to rats. And just maybe I am cleaning the cage too often and they don’t appreciate the new smell.

May be I'm being too paranoid. Once again thank you :thumbup:
 
You clean your cages twice a day and people think it smells? :laugh4: They're imagining things and need their heads read. :wink2: As SQ suggested I think a lot of people will "smell a rat" only if they know you have them. IMO, it relates to upbringing and if people were raised to think animals were dirty.

It's good to keep your cages clean but you really shouldn't over do it. I would never clean everything, always leave something that retains their scent so that when you put them back in their clean house it still smells like home to them.

I would say if you're worried about any smells in the hallway get a can of Oust and give a quick spray a couple of times a day - maybe once when you are leaving and then again when you come home. I use it when I'm expecting company.

Other than that, if people complain about how my house smells I point out to them it is a home that loves animals and what they smell is love. :D
 
MumsyRat said:
Other than that, if people complain about how my house smells I point out to them it is a home that loves animals and what they smell is love. :D
Click to expand...

:thumbup:

In my last apartment, a woman in a neighboring apartment started to complain about the horrible smell once she found out I had pet rats. The woman in the apartment next to me commented that the other woman probably smelled her cat's litter box if she smelled anything at all. Even my landlord (mother) who has a sentive nose and regularily stoped by for an informal sniff test, never found there was any smell ...
 
Any time I've ever noticed a bad smell from my cages I've usually found a spot inside a hidey house where the kids took all the bedding away and left a bare spot on the cage floor and someone peed there, for some reason a stagnant pile of unabsorbed pee can smell bad pretty fast. I've also found before that between the cage walls & the levels I've put in is a space that needs paricularly good cleaning.
Personally, if I came in your place I might think it smelled cause of the vinegar, not the kids (I hate the smell of vinegar, and bleach)
My doctor always tells me he smells rats on me in his offfice and he is allergic. My mom has said she can smell them in my apartment, but then she is bothered when I smoke in my car with the windows open and the smoke in my left hand using an ashtry on the very left side of the dashboard too.
You could burn incence a couple times a day, it's easy & cheap, that might mask any smell for the hyper-sniffers.
 
Linda, is it a Superpet cage? with those plastic shelves? Unfortunately, those shelves really stink and for some reason, I find it near impossible to get the smell of urine out of that plastic. One thing that I found helped was covering those shelves with fleece or towels and changed them everyday.
 
jorats said:
Linda, is it a Superpet cage? with those plastic shelves? Unfortunately, those shelves really stink and for some reason, I find it near impossible to get the smell of urine out of that plastic. One thing that I found helped was covering those shelves with fleece or towels and changed them everyday.
Click to expand...

Actually, the cage does have plastic shelves...that could be the culprit. I'll try covering them. I just bought some "Nature's Miracle" that's suppose to remove urine smell and be safe around pets and animals. I would hate for my rats and I to get evicted
because of smell. :giggle:
 

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