Two Simple Tasks To Complete Before Selling A Home That's Been Lived In By Pets
As a pet owner, your animals mean the world to you. You're willing to deal with their hair on your clothes or a few paw prints on the kitchen floor. If you're thinking of selling your home, however, potential buyers may not be as open to the idea of these little pet reminders as you are. Taking the time to remove the most obvious pet evidence from your home before putting it on the market may help you find a buyer more quickly, and will certainly make it easier to reach your asking price.
Removing all evidence of pets from a home can be tough. Maximize your gains by focusing on the following two tasks:
Replace or repair scratched doors and door frames.
Many cats and dogs have the habit of scratching at door frames when they want to enter or leave a room. Some even reach their paws under doors and scratch the bottoms of the doors themselves. These scratches make the former presence of a pet obvious to potential buyers. Get rid of them, and it will be much less obvious that the house was the former home to a Maine coon and three chihuahuas!
You can deal with mild scratches by buffing them out with sandpaper and then using a furniture stain pen to stain them. If your doors or door frames are made from dark wood, you may wish to strip and refinish the entire door, buffing out the scratches with sandpaper before applying the new stain. Replacing the door or door frame completely may be the best option in cases where the scratches are deep. Although this is not a cheap option, keep in mind that you're likely to recoup the costs by selling your home for a higher price than it would fetch with scratched up doorways.
Have your carpets professionally cleaned.
You may not smell pet odors when you walk into your home, but they are likely obvious to someone who does not have pets. Many of these odors linger in carpets, which can hold on to smelly bacteria and mold spores for years, even if you're been careful to vacuum regularly.
Shampooing the carpet with a portable carpet shampooer is better than nothing, but it won't remove the deepest, odorous particles that a professional steam cleaning can. When you make arrangements to have your carpet cleaned, request that your technician uses an enzymatic cleaner, which will help fight pet odors even more aggressively by neutralizing smelly enzymes found in urine, saliva and dander.
If you want to sell your home quickly, you need to make a good first impression on potential buyers. If they're greeted with scratched doors and a pet odor, they're not likely to make an offer. Getting rid of these obvious signs of pets is essential.
Have more questions? Contact a company like Duranotic Door Inc. to learn more.
Share