How to safely clean/remove recent mouse urine stain in carpet

carpetcleaningmicestainstain-removal

I recently dealt with a singular mouse that got into an open door (when roommate/landlord was bringing in groceries) and, in the midst of hunting down the mouse, it urinated on the carpet, leaving a singular ~1" dia. stain (that I currently have isolated from other objects in the room).

While I have since cleaned all other hard and soft surfaces in the same room (with proper disinfectants, gloves, face mask, etc.) I have not been able to get around to dealing with the carpet yet.

Given that mouse urine, both wet and dry, does pose health and safety risks, should I consider contacting a professional carpet cleaner to deal with the stain or would I be able to clean the stain myself properly (with PPE)? If by myself, would I focus on sterilizing the stained area or just on stain removal alone?

Best Answer

Unless you are in an area that has some known level of serious infectious agent in the mouse population, such as Hantavirus, you should clean it immediately by hand with whatever detergent you have on hand. I would clean it 2x with hot water with detergent and then rinse the detergent out. Then dry it with a hair dryer.

EDIT

See Yosemite Hantavirus incidents

You could follow the rinsing with some sort of sterilizing agent like vinegar or alcohol, which would then have to be rinsed out. Note that these might leave an odor which would persist for some time.

EDIT

You could spray some (white) vinegar on the spot, let it stand for 20 min and then clean it. I think hand cleaning would be fine for one small spot. Honestly some parts of the country are infested with mice and disease transmission is rare.