If you’re looking to cut toxic cleaners from your home, you’ve likely come across the idea of cleaning with vinegar. Here are a few different ways I use Four Monks Cleaning Vinegar to clean up after my pets, which helps to keep the area non-toxic and pet friendly!
This post about using vinegar when cleaning with pets was inspired by a collaboration with Four Monks Cleaning Vinegar. All opinions and text are my own.
I’ve lived with a pet in my house as long as I can remember. While I was growing up, my family always had a cat indoors, even a dog or two at times, so it’s no surprise that we moved into our new home with our 14 year old cat, Roxy, and my parent’s 7 year old Yorkie, Smokey.
Unfortunately, my husband had never lived with pets until we got married. He wasn’t quite excited about sharing a home with a feline, but he quickly got used to her being around [since she outranked him of being in my life 7 years before him].
They got along well, but he wasn’t happy with the idea of the messes that she could leave behind. She always struggled with sensitive stomach issues which meant I had to clean up after her just about as much as I did my girls.
Rob always wrinkled his nose when I brought the jar of vinegar out to clean up the carpet. He didn’t like the smell of vinegar, but he did appreciate that it took away any stains that seemed to linger.
So I’ve been using vinegar to clean up after pets for years now. But just recently I was introduced to a new brand of vinegar that doesn’t leave Rob with a turned up nose.
Four Monks cleaning vinegar is a non-toxic, safer way to clean with a mild aroma! You get the best of both worlds – the cleaning power of vinegar without the overwhelming smell. Sure, it still smells like vinegar, but the aroma is much more mild. I am absolutely loving the Citrus Mint Scent.
The most common way I use vinegar around our house is on carpet. Now, when we moved into our new [to us] home in April, one of the first things we fell in love with were the original hardwood floors. Our home was built in the 1920s and since it’s covered in hardwood floors, there isn’t much carpet.
You can always leave it to Roxy and Smokey to find the carpet though… I always joked that if they are going to have a potty accident or make a mess, they will always find carpet to make cleanup harder. Luckily, I know the trick to cleaning carpet is vinegar!
I’ve always found that the vinegar not only eliminates any pet odors left behind, but also removes most stains – with a little scrubbing.
With two animals in the house it’s so important to not only take care of the stain, but almost more important is to get rid of the odor to keep pets from marking their territory, and I’ve found that Four Monks vinegar does both.
While the number one way I use vinegar when cleaning with pets is on carpet stains and messes, I do use it in a couple other ways as well.
Because vinegar cleans and deodorizes, I love to put about 1/8 cup in with our pets’ laundry including towels, blankets, and Smokey’s little shirts. I don’t know how but he manages to get his clothes dirtier than my girls at times, but I’ve found by adding in a little vinegar to the laundry wash cycles, we get the stains and smells right out.
Lastly, because vinegar is a powerful cleaner, yet non-toxic, it makes perfect sense to use the spray to clean hard surfaces. Whether it’s a mess around the food bowl, litter box, or dirty feet after a walk around the yard, there are lots of messes to be found on hard wood and tile too.
We always leave a spray bottle of Four Monks cleaning vinegar in the kitchen to take care of those messes too. The area gets clean and I don’t have to worry about it being toxic for my beloved pets.
If you aren’t using vinegar when cleaning with pets, I urge you to try it. I think you’ll see you get great results in a more eco-friendly way and can feel at peace with using non-toxic cleaners around your furry friends! Want even more tips for using vinegar with pets? Be sure to visit Four Monks’ Vinegar Tips for pets.
Scarlet
Tuesday 10th of April 2018
Pets are the best but they sure can smell things up. Thanks for the tips!
Robert Nash
Monday 26th of September 2016
Awesome ideas you have! I never thought about adding it to my pets' laundry; definitely going to try that. I also use vinegar to de-scale my professional equipment as well as my coffee maker. I have used it to remove grout haze as well! Thank you for the info. Nice site.
Paul
Friday 2nd of September 2016
I literally clean everything around my home and my customers' home with a mixture of water, distilled white vinegar and dish washing soap!
It's great for removing streaky marks from your windows, too!
But vinegar and water isn't just limited to cleaning with pets, you can also clean your cultlery and crockery with it, your bathroom, as I said you can clean windows using vinegar and water.. Just get a clothes peg for the after smell!
Rachel
Friday 5th of August 2016
Vinegar can work a lot of wonders with a lot of different messes around the home. It doesn't have to stop with just pets! I often use it to clean in my kitchen, whether it's in the microwave or on the counter tops. Thanks for sharing the tips!
Michaela
Tuesday 5th of July 2016
Very useful post, thank you. I was looking for a while for the right type of vinegar, as I am aware of its perfect cleaning effect. However, I was ending up buying useless stuff as some of them left dirty spots that I could not clean after that. Fortunately I found your blog post. Thanks again!