Accidents are pretty common in the bathroom. Drips and dribbles of urine around the toilet area can happen. This urine can quickly get stuck in the tile grout and create unpleasant stains and smells. Let’s look at how you can get these urine stains and smell out of your tile grout.
Regular mopping and dusting will keep urine out of the tile grout around your toilet. If there are any tough stains, they can be removed using natural and chemical cleaning methods like a mixture of vinegar and baking soda, bleach, or an enzyme grout cleaner.
Urine stains and smells are a real pain to get rid of. Urine can get stuck in the tile grout and give bacteria and other pathogens life. If left uncleaned – these stains can give off a peculiar smell. So, you should clean your grout regularly to avoid any germ buildup. Our step-by-step guide will not only help you remove urine and its stains from the toilet tiles but also any tiled surface around the house.
How to Remove Urine and Its Stains From Tile Grout
It’s not uncommon for kids or pets to urinate on your bathroom floor or have a minor accident while trying to pee in the toilet. Regular mopping and cleaning of your tiles will ensure that there is no urine stuck in your tile grout.
This will also ensure that urine doesn’t dry off on the tiles and get stuck in the grout. Before we detail how you can get tough urine stains out of the tile grout, let’s look at the list of materials you’ll need to accomplish this.
What You’ll Need
1. An Enzyme Cleaner
Enzyme cleaners are perfect for cleaning urine because they contain bacteria that can secrete enzymes. These enzymes are super effective in breaking down organic materials like urine, food, and feces.
You should look for a pet urine cleaner when you’re out in the market because this is equally effective for human urine.
2. Baking Soda
Baking soda works well on urine stains. This one will help get rid of the pungent urine smell by deodorizing it.
3. Vinegar
Where there’s baking soda, there is vinegar. You will need a small amount of distilled vinegar to form a reaction with the baking soda.
4. Ammonia
Ammonia is another ingredient that will work in combination with baking soda to remove the urine from the deep pores of the grout.
5. Paper Towels
Paper towels will help you soak up the excess urine from the tile and tile grout so you can do the rest of the cleaning steps easily.
6. Toothbrush
A toothbrush will help you reach into the grooves of tiles to clean out that grout. It will make the scrubbing part much easier.
7. Sponge
Get any scrubber or sponge to clean the grout properly.
Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Urine Out of Grout
Now let’s jump to the actual process of getting the urine out of the grout around the toilet.
1. Get rid of the excess.
Suppose you’ve just discovered an accident in the bathroom. You should begin by soaking up the excess using paper towels.
Once you’ve soaked up the excess, you can now dampen the paper towel to clean up any remaining traces of urine on the tile grout.
2. Apply enzyme cleaner
Time to take out the enzyme cleaner. Spray or pour a generous amount of cleaner on the tile grout. Let it sit for as long as the instructions on the label indicated. Some brands will need more time to sit than others.
Once you’ve let it sit for the required time, you need to scrub the area. If you still see stains or smell urine after cleaning, you must repeat the process.
3. Use the baking soda solution.
It’s time to deodorize that stinky smell of urine. Below is the detail on the number of ingredients for this mix:
| Ingredient | Quantity |
| Water | 7 cups |
| Ammonia | ⅓ cup |
| Baking soda | ½ cup |
| Vinegar | ¼ cup |
Mix all these and apply them directly to the stained area. You need to leave the solution to sit for about an hour for stubborn stains. Thirty minutes will do for more minor stains.
After the mix has been sitting for an hour, take a toothbrush and vigorously scrub the stained area until all the urine is gone.
Most of the stains should be removed by the enzyme cleaner, but this solution will help eliminate the smell of urine and any remaining traces of it.
Lastly, leave the area to dry, and your grout will look and smell good as new.
How to Spot Urine Stains in the Toilet
What if you are sure there is urine on your walls or floor, but you can’t see it? This is often the case when you can smell the awful scent of urine in your bathroom, yet you can’t see the actual stains.
We suggest you use a black light to locate these stains. Turn off all the lights in the bathroom and use the light to identify the stains. Use a removable material like chalk and mark the stains so you can clean them with the lights on.
You can now easily clean these stains using the detailed step-by-step guide above.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How do I get rid of the urine’s smell from the grout?
Baking soda is a powerful natural deodorizing agent that can get rid of the urine smell from your toilet floors and walls. Make a baking soda and vinegar mixture and use it to scrub away urine stains.
2. Does urine soak into a tile?
Urine has the potential to get into your grout’s pore and damage it due to its acidic nature.
3. Can vinegar neutralize the smell of urine?
It takes about 5-10 minutes after a vinegar and baking soda mix is applied to urine to neutralize it.
Final Thoughts
Urine smell and stains can be pretty nasty to have in a toilet but it’s inevitable in a house with pets and kids. The key is to know how to remove these stains timely. We hope our step by step guide helps you remove both urine stains and smells from your toilet floors and walls.
Amos Christen graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Interior Design from Drexel University — Philadelphia, PA. Since 2003, Amos has worked with top interior design professionals in this area, including architects and interior/graphic/lighting designers. As a skilled interior designer, Amos Christen is highly versed in fine arts and crafts and uses that to supplement his main area of expertise. He often publishes articles related to home décor on several websites, including Sprucetoilets.com, Sprucebathroom.com, and Mybesuitedhome.com. He also contributes to leading interior design magazines.