How to Clean Up a Cat Hairball in Five Easy Steps

As I write this, the guilty culprit is glaring over my shoulder from her perch atop my book shelf. Yes, one of my cats is critiquing my work every step of the way today, especially now as I write about this weekend's mess, in which she is the guilty party.

Despite our best efforts to keep an eye on our cats while they are inside the house, they sometimes leave behind calling cards from their various adventures. This time, it was a hairball, which was hurled front and center on the best carpet in the best room of the house. Most unfortunately, we failed to spot the mess until the next morning, when it was at least twelve hours old. This meant that upon removing the hairball, we found a number of puke-tinted stains on the carpet near the evidence. Thankfully our carpet's not white, but more of a lovely sea foam. Nonetheless, the stain was glaringly conspicuous.

This is not our first time dealing with a carpet hairball. I might even go so far as to say we've almost perfected our hairball removal techniques using some carpet cleaner, paper towels, a vacuum cleaner, and a little bit of elbow grease. So if your cat has just hurled up a hairball on your precious carpet, fear not; here's the easiest way to remove it, even if it's hours old.

Step One: Remove All the Chunks

There's a number of ways to remove hairball chunks. Our cats cough up hairballs in the shape of turds, oddly enough, accompanied by strings and chunks of other gastrointestinal waste. So it's all I can do to keep my own puke reflexes down while cleaning up the mess, especially right near breakfast time. But feelings aside, I've found that, if the hairball is wet, it's easiest to clean up using a plastic spoon (or a kitchen spoon, if that doesn't disgust you). Being careful not to rub the hairball juices into the carpet while you're picking them up, slide the spoon underneath the chunks and deposit them into a paper towel or straight into the trash can if it's nearby. It's important to get all residue possible before applying the carpet cleaner.

If the hairball is dry, simply take a paper towel and pick up the bulk of the mess, throw it away, get a new paper towel and start lightly peeling the dried bits off the carpet. You don't have to get everything; just the chunky and dried runny stuff.

Step Two: Apply the Carpet Cleaner

There's many carpet cleaners that work, but I use Woolite Carpet Cleaner, Heavy Traffic Plus Odor Eliminator. Make sure whichever cleaner you use is a foaming cleaner. Stand right near the mess, shake the can well, turn it upside down completely, and depress the nozzle 100% to get an even foam all over the messy area. Leave it sit for a few minutes, then take a damp sponge or a couple of damp Bounty paper towels and work the foam into the carpet.

As you work it in, you can see if the stains are coming up. If they're not, finish working the foam into the carpet, wait five minutes, and then repeat the application process. Take care, however, as this will make the carpet extra wet, so you might need to place an area fan by the mess to dry it up within the same day.

Note: During my most recent mess, I spent about twenty minutes cleaning up the stain because it was 10-12 hours old. However, if you reach it before then, it only takes about five minutes.

Step Three: Clean Area with Damp Sponge or Paper Towels

Rinse out your sponge or get new paper towels and begin removing the cleaner. Working in a circular motion, and not so quickly that you make it foam even more, try to get the bulk of the soap out of the carpet. This might take a number of sponge rinsings or paper towel changes to complete the job.

Step Four: Let It Dry

As I mentioned before, you might want to place a small fan near the wet carpet to get it to dry quickly. I had to do a double dose of carpet cleaner on our carpet, so it was wetter than usual and took a while to dry. On average though, it should be completely dry within 6 hours.

Step Five: Vacuum the Area

Using a vacuum with a bag, vacuum the dry and surrounding areas until nothing remains to lend evidence to a mess. You might notice the carpet's still a little on the fluffy side after being shampooed, but after some traffic it'll blend right in with the rest of your carpet again. I like to vacuum it after another 24 hours just for good measure.

As an aside note, these same steps typically work for removing kitty poop stains and odor from carpet as well. Doesn't work as well for pee, but it does help for this as well.