We've tried to cover the most common questions people tend to ask us, but just in case we didn't cover one you'd like to ask, you can e-mail us via the link at the bottom of the page.

Click on any of these topics to jump down the page to the answer:

• I've been buying Concentrate. How much SUPER Concentrate do I get to yield the same RTU?

• How much Concentrate do I use to make RTU?

• You're not answering your phone & I want to order or ask a question.

• I'm having trouble ordering or viewing the site. What to do?

• How can I pay with a credit card without a PayPal account?

• Is DooDoo Voodoo expensive?

• Does DooDoo Voodoo really, truly work as well on pet urine odors as you say it does?

• Do smells get worse before they get better...& how long will it take my carpet/pad to dry?

• What's involved in mixing up the Pet Odor 911 formula?

• Does DooDoo Voodoo work on other types of odors?

• What does RTU mean?  Can I buy RTU direct from you? 

• How much DooDoo Voodoo does it take to treat a typical feline urine spot?

• Why is it so hard to eradicate urine odor in carpet pad, furniture cushions, etc.?

• Do most cats pee outside the litter box due to health reasons?

• What can I do to find all the spots where my pet has peed in the house

• Do you recommend that I spray DooDoo Voodoo to apply it, or should I pour it on the spots?

• Is there any special trick to applying DooDoo Voodoo to help ensure its success?

• Is DooDoo Voodoo "safe"?

• What’s the shelf life for DooDoo Voodoo as compared to other products?

• Does DooDoo Voodoo come with a money-back guarantee?

• Does DooDoo Voodoo work on stains as well as odors?

• How strong should a mixture should I use if I'm mopping a hard surface with DooDoo Voodoo?

• Is DooDoo Voodoo color-safe?

• Does DooDoo Voodoo leave behind a strong scent?

• I've treated my pee spots, but under the blacklight they still show up.  Will this go away?

• My DooDoo Voodoo has become kind of "milky" looking.  Does this affect its ability to do its job?

• How quickly do you ship orders?

• Do I need to let DooDoo Voodoo dry fully before I re-treat the area?

• I'm having difficulty making a PayPal purchase.  What do I need to do?

• Anything else I can do to keep my air healthy and my place smelling fresh?

• Anything else I can do to help adjust my cat's attitude and behavior?

• Why is DooDoo Voodoo sometimes clear and sometimes milky?  Is performance affected?

• Can I use DooDoo Voodoo on leather?

• Should I use DooDoo Voodoo with or instead of my usual solution in my carpet cleaner?

• The search tool also shows Google ads for your competitors.  Why?

• How many square feet of coverage will I get out of each gallon of DooDoo Voodoo once mixed?

• What is the best way to use DooDoo Voodoo in the laundry?

• You say DooDoo Voodoo contains essential oils. Does it contain tea tree oil?

• What can I do to increase the shelf life of my DooDoo Voodoo?

• Does the smell of pet urine have a detrimental effect on health?

• I'm not sure which to get. Can you compare the blacklights?

• How much stronger than a human's is a cat's sense of smell?

• How wet is wet enough:  How much Doodoo Voodoo do I need to saturate my carpet & pad?
 

• I've been buying Concentrate all these years. How do the sizes of the new SUPER Concentrate compare to the old Concentrate? How much do I buy to yield the same amount of RTU?
The new SUPER Concentrate is twice as concentrated as the Concentrate we've sold for decades.  For example, 16oz of SUPER Concentrate will yield the same amount of self-mixed RTU as 32oz (a quart) of Concentrate.  So, buy half as much as you're used to buying.  Note, too, that we've introduced new sizes (quantities) of SUPER Concentrate for which we've never had Concentrate equivalents.

• How much SUPER Concentrate do I use to make RTU?
Depending on your odor or stain's severity, we recommend using between 1/4 and 1 ounce of SUPER Concentrate per quart of warm water.  To reduce foaming, add most of the water first, then the Concentrate, then the rest of the water.  Here are the measurement equivalents:

1/4 ounce = 7.5ml = 1.5tsp = 1/2tbsp = 1/32 cup

1/2 ounce = 15ml = 3tsp = 1tbsp = 1/16 cup

1 ounce = 30ml = 6tsp = 2tbsp = 1/8 cup

• How much of the previous Concentrate do I use to make RTU?
Depending on your odor or stain's severity, we recommend using between 1/2 and 2 ounces of Concentrate per quart of warm water.  To reduce foaming, add most of the water first, then the Concentrate, then the rest of the water.  Here are the measurement equivalents:

1/2 ounce = 15ml = 3tsp = 1tbsp = 1/16 cup

1 ounce = 30ml = 6tsp = 2tbsp = 1/8 cup

2 ounces = 60ml = 12tsp = 4tbsp = 1/4 cup

• You're not answering your phone & I want to order or ask a question.
There are times we do not answer our phone, yes.  This generally means we're tied up with travel or meetings for our other (40-year-old, global) company or that we're tied up with animal charity work (including operating a facility where we provide lifelong care for special-needs animals; we have vet appointments virtually every day).  If we don't answer the phone and you urgently want to ask a question, please e-mail us.  We MUCH prefer e-mail to phone calls!  If you'd like to place an order, please do so through the website if possible.  If you can't order through the website for some reason, please e-mail us and we will call you back as soon as we can.

• I'm having trouble ordering or viewing. How do I clear my browser cache and refresh what I'm seeing?
Sometimes PayPal and the ordering process can seem to go on the fritz.  Other times, you may visit our site and not see what you expect to see.  When this happens, the first thing you should do is press the F5 key at the top of your keyboard to refresh the page you're on (this is especially important to do if you've visited our site before; your browser may not be showing you the current version of the site's pages, so press the F5 key to refresh the content).  If this doesn't work, many times these issues can be solved by clearing your browser cache.  For instructions on clearing the cache in most major browsers, see this article by a third party (with which we have no affiliation).  To clear your cache in Google Chrome, go to Settings, check these boxes and tell it to clear the cache of these items.  If things still don't go right, call us and we'll help you get the order placed the old-fashioned way, but clearing your browser's cache is almost certainly going to solve the issue for you.

• How can I pay with a credit card without a PayPal account?
Most customers pay via PayPal, but for those who don't have a PayPal account or prefer not to use PayPal, there are two other ways to pay with a credit card.  After adding products to your shopping cart, click the white Check Out button, as shown on this image.

Clicking the white Check Out button will take you to a page where you can enter your credit card information --- even if you don't have a PayPal account.  Click here to see this page.

Another alternative is that you can call us and give us your credit card number directly over the phone, but this will delay your order getting filled and shipped, so the above-illustrated method or the usual PayPal checkout, which you accomplish by clicking the gold PayPal Check Out button as shown in the first image, are preferred and will help us get your product to you faster. 

• Is DooDoo Voodoo expensive?
Given what other ineffective products on the market cost, we sure don’t think so.   We’ve been testing existing odor control products since 1987 and can tell you from firsthand experience that there are many products out there that cost far more than DooDoo Voodoo, yet don’t come near its level of effectiveness.

Here are some solid examples.

There's a competing product that sells for up to $155.00 per gallon of RTU (ready-to-use, not concentrate) on a popular e-commerce site.  DooDoo Voodoo costs as little as $1.56 a gallon of RTU (with free shipping).

To yield the same amount of RTU that a gallon of DooDoo Voodoo Concentrate yields for $163.90 (with free shipping), you'd spend $3,686.40 for a "seen on TV" product.  Unbelievable, but absolutely TRUE.

DooDoo Voodoo typically costs far less than what you'd spend to have a carpet-cleaning company apply a pet odor neutralizer.  (Some carpet cleaners do a good job with odor and stain remediation, but some miss the mark.  Choose your cleaner carefully.)

If you buy DooDoo Voodoo Concentrate and add your own water, your end cost per mixed RTU gallon will be as low as $1.56, which is lower than the price of a gallon of milk.  By comparison, here are per-gallon costs of common retail products:  Diet Snapple $10.32; Starbucks regular coffee $16.80; Lipton ice tea $9.52; Gatorade $10.17; Ocean Spray $10.00; Brake Fluid $33.60; Vick's NyQuil $178.13; Pepto Bismol $123.20; Wite-Out $25.42; Scope $84.48; Evian water $21.19.  Clearly, DooDoo Voodoo is a BARGAIN!

There's a competing product that is so weak (meaning you're paying for lots of water) that you have to use 4X as much of their concentrate as you use of DooDoo Voodoo Concentrate.

One of our top veterinary clinic dealers tells us that they can now SELL DooDoo Voodoo for less than they used to PAY WHOLESALE for a competing product their practice manager told me "didn't work anyway."

The great Oscar Wilde once said, "A cynic knows the price of everything...and the value of nothing."  Well, the more you know about DooDoo Voodoo and its competitors, both in terms of effectiveness and pricing, the more you'll understand that no other product can match DooDoo Voodoo's value.

• Does DooDoo Voodoo really, truly work as well on pet urine odors as you say it does?  You’re not pulling our legs are you?
It absolutely does.  I am not kidding you.

Given that most pets who practice indiscriminate urination end up being taken to shelters, where they’re summarily euthanized, we take eradicating pet urine odors very seriously. In fact, our main impetus for working so long to develop a product that would successfully eradicate pet odors has been to help save pets lives.  As I’ve said before, "from now on pet urine odors are only an inconvenience, not a death sentence."

Let’s not kid ourselves:  nobody likes having a pet who pees in the house, but nobody wants to put their pet to death because of it either.  It’s just that people get to the ends of their ropes and feel as if their whole world will end if they don’t get rid of their &^%$# pee smell.  Unfortunately, when most people get to this point, they resort to surrendering their pets to shelters, most of which automatically euthanize any animal known to have problems with indiscriminate urination. DooDoo Voodoo is intended to be a safety net for such people and pets.  It can allow people to peacefully coexist with their pets even when there is an issue with indiscriminate urination.  Now, if a pet repeatedly returns to the same exact spot to pee dozens and dozens of times, the odor may get to a point where perhaps even DooDoo Voodoo won’t be able to fully eradicate the odor source (not to mention the fact that the pet has developed a habit that needs to be broken).  But this is an extreme circumstance which, luckily, most people will never face (although we did with one of our rescued cats, Gracie, and DooDoo Voodoo still worked for us).  If you get a handle on a pee spot soon enough, you’ll be able to fully eradicate any odor and you stand a good chance of your pet not returning to the same spot again.  We’ve had this success in our house with Gracie, who receives a daily dose of Paxil^® (the anti-depressant medication many humans take; it helps curb her desire to be territorial).  Now some of her favorite spots to lie in the sun are within a foot of where she once (or twice, or a half dozen times...) peed, but she longer pees there.  To us, this says volumes about DooDoo Voodoo’s effectiveness.

We take pets’ lives very seriously and would never mislead a pet owner for the sake of commercial gain.

• Do smells get worse before they get better?  And how long will the carpet & pad take to dry?
Often yes, but this is dependent on the chemistry of the animal's urine, how long the urine has been there and other factors.  We've seen urine areas treated and their smell went away almost instantly, but we've also seen situations where the odors got worse until DooDoo Voodoo did its thing and totally dried.  Please allow DooDoo Voodoo time to fully dry in the carpet backing, pad and subfloor (if you've wet the area to that extent) before making a judgment as to whether it's been effective, or whether you need to apply a second treatment.  Drying often takes a LOT longer than you might think it would.  One of DooDoo Voodoo's competitors says to allow 2 weeks for the carpet and pad to fully dry (if the area got saturated with product, not just surface-sprayed).  We've seen it take this long, which is why we instruct you not to rush to judgment and not to re-treat the areas too soon after your first application.  The majority of the odor elimination actually occurs at the final stages of drying, which is why we urge you to let the area fully dry before assessing your success.  For the first few hours after treatment, we do not encourage you to use fans to accelerate drying, but after that fans are ok (and recommended).

• What's involved in mixing up the Pet Odor 911^™ formula?
You'll need at least a 16oz. container to mix the formula in.  You'll need a plastic spoon or straw to stir the mixture.  You'll be adding ingredients to the mixing container, stirring the mixture, then pouring it or spraying it on the areas that have been soiled.  The solution must NOT be left in an enclosed bottle, jar or pail due to the oxygen that's released by the chemical reaction that occurs when the ingredients are mixed.  You should immediately dispose of any unused Pet Odor 911^™ down your sink or toilet.  It is fully biodegradable.

• Does DooDoo Voodoo work on other types of odors?
Because cat urine odor is more generally the most difficult odor to remediate, that's what we tend to focus on, but DooDoo Voodoo also works great on dog messes, ferret messes, vomit, spilled milk odor and lots more.  Shown to the right is our now-deceased rescued Terrier/Chihuahua Mix, Heidi, who was diagnosed with a disease and was guaranteed to soil the carpet if we didn't take her out to potty about every hour.  Luckily, DooDoo Voodoo made cleaning up after Heidi no big deal.  DooDoo Voodoo is effective on any kind of organic odor, so it is effective on vomit, human incontinence and other body fluids which shall remain nameless.  Read our customers' testimonials for more on all the types of odors DooDoo Voodoo has eradicated for them.

• What does RTU mean?  Can I buy RTU (pre-mixed) direct from you?
RTU stands for Ready To Use, which means you don’t have to do any mixing with water before you can use the product.  While purchasing a RTU product is more convenient, obviously you’ll end up paying more per quart for a RTU product than you will when buying DooDoo Voodoo Concentrate (at retail) or SUPER Concentrate (through this site) and mixing it with your own warm water.

We do not sell individual spray bottles of RTU through this site, but our Immediate Relief Kit #1 does include a bottle of RTU for those of you who want to hit the ground running.  We also sell a DIY RTU Gallon which includes a 4oz bottle of SUPER Concentrate and an empty gallon jug; all you do is fill the jug with warm water, add the little bottle of SUPER Concentrate and --- bam --- you've got a gallon of RTU.  Both offerings include free shipping.

Our veterinary partners and others do sell trigger-sprayer bottles of RTU (and some sell bottles of Concentrate), so visit them if you desire to purchase a spray bottle of RTU.  You can find their contact info on our PRODUCTS page or down the homepage.

• How much DooDoo Voodoo does it take to treat a typical feline urine spot?
In our experience we’ve found that the number of ounces of DooDoo Voodoo you’ll use per normal spot is generally from 10 ounces to 16 ounces of ready-to-use (which you either purchased or mixed yourself using Concentrate), though some cats' urine output can be such that you might need more.  If the cat is larger & older, you’ll tend to use more than you would for spots made by a younger & smaller cat or kitten.  Male cats’ (especially ferals) sprayed urine can tend to be stronger than females’, so you’ll use more for these types of spots.  Naturally, if you're dealing with a spot where your kitty has repeatedly urinated, you'll use more than 10 ounces, but don't fear; DooDoo Voodoo is so economical that it will still only cost you pennies to treat most spots.

Count on treating a larger area than you see on the surface of the carpet.  Urine tends to spread out horizontally as it soaks in, so there's a lot more contaminated area than just what you see on the surface, as shown by this diagram we whipped up (click for the larger version):

(The image above is our original creation and is copyright protected
2004-2017.  All rights reserved.  The image may not be used without permission.)

The weird thing, and this ties in with the next question & answer, is that it seems to take a lot more ounces of odor neutralizer to eradicate urine odor than there were ounces of urine in the first place.  Don't ask me why.

• Why is it so hard to eradicate urine odor in carpet pad, furniture cushions, etc.?
Not to get too Zen-like on you, but sometimes it seems as if urine has a lot less trouble penetrating deep into the cells than odor neutralizer does.  Mr. Science has no rational explanation for this, but has experienced the phenomenon himself, even as the inventor of DooDoo Voodoo.  Perhaps the trick is to click your heels together three times or something.  :-)

As you might have seen on the About Us page, we own a sizable company that holds patents on a variety of acoustical foam products and we've been in the foam manufacturing business since 1977.  As such, we have a pretty intimate knowledge of how foam behaves.

Open-celled foam, which is the type used for carpet pad (both prime and rebond, the recycled "chunky" type), furniture cushions, mattresses, car seats and more, is comprised of billions of microscopic, thin-walled cells.  The cells' walls are open to varying degrees based on the density and composition of the foam being made.  It's kind of like taking a billion tiny basketballs, cutting a chunk out of one side, then gluing them together.  Now that you've got that vision in your mind's eye, imagine forcing a stinky liquid like urine through all the nooks and crannies until it had penetrated deep into the conglomeration of basketballs.  This is akin to what happens when an animal (or human) urinates on foam.  When you look at an electron microscope image of open-celled foam, it looks like the cells are really open, such as is shown by this image of a type of foam that's dramatically more open than many types of foam that seem to get peed on.  Because of all the billions of microscopic cells, it's our job to make sure we introduce enough DooDoo Voodoo to penetrate deep into all the nooks and crannies.  This is why we keep hammering on you on this site and in our literature to make absolutely sure that you sufficiently wet an area so that DooDoo Voodoo positively comes in contact with ALL the urine.

• Do most cats pee outside the litter box due to health reasons?
No.  Many animal behaviorists believe that most indiscriminate urination is due to behavioral issues, not health problems.  The first thing you should always do if your cat begins to urinate outside the litter box is to have your cat checked by your veterinarian, though, because it’d be terrible to ultimately find out that your cat needed medical attention and didn’t receive it.  If medical causes are ruled out, your cat is likely urinating outside the litter box because he or she has his or her nose "out of joint."  There is an article discussing litter box issues on the Downloads page of our website.  Check it out and we bet you'll find some helpful hints about how to improve your kitty's litter box habits.  At times, we've also found it helpful to speak with an animal communicator such as Mary Marshall or energy healer such as Kathy Barr.  Their work has yielded some palpable results and some amazing insight, so we highly recommend them in cases where you just can't figure out your issues, either behavioral or health-related.

• What can I do to find all the spots where my cat has peed in the house?
You need a DooDoo Voodoo Blacklight!  The right type of blacklight makes all the difference:  it will show you where urine and other body fluids are.  Years of experience have taught us that the units you buy at your local discount or home improvement store don't emit the correct frequency of ultraviolet (UV) light, so they may not show up what you want 'em to.  This is akin to trying to tune in an AM station with an FM radio.  As shown on our PRODUCTS page, the DooDoo Voodoo Blacklight is made by GE and has proven itself as being great at fluorescing urine, feces, vomit and other body fluids.  Tip:  Get yourself a 15-to-25-foot extension cord so you’re not having to constantly unplug and re-plug the light, and you should have no trouble at all finding the spots. In fact, you’ll probably be surprised at how many spots you’ll find.  While you’re at it, don’t forget to check your furniture, too, in addition to your carpet.  Many cats will pee on couches both where you sit and down by the floor, so be sure to check thoroughly.  Some cats will stand on the back of the couch or other furniture and spray the wall, so check at that height, too.  Here's a picture of what it looks like when a cat sprays the wall while standing on a piece of furniture.  In the picture, there's urine running down both wall sections shown.

• Do you recommend that I spray DooDoo Voodoo to apply it, or should I pour it on the spots?
We tend to spray DooDoo Voodoo on vertical surfaces (where cats usually spray) and pour it on carpet spots & other horizontal surfaces where cats have squatted and peed.  If a cat backs up to a wall and sprays, the urine will run down the wall and some will end up on the baseboard (as shown on the Case Studies page), while the bulk will seep down into the carpet and pad adjacent to the baseboard. In this instance, we would spray DooDoo Voodoo on the wall (being sure to cover enough area vertically & horizontally so DooDoo Voodoo goes wherever the urine went), then we’d pour DooDoo Voodoo on the carpet adjacent to & parallel to the baseboard.  Just be sure to get DooDoo Voodoo wherever urine went, or you won’t totally eliminate the sources of your odor.  If you’re the sort of person who tends to have allergies, you may find that DooDoo Voodoo’s light scent will bother you less if you pour vs. if you spray.  We also would suggest that you not spray with short, quick strokes, because that method yields more aerosolization (misting), which may not be desirable.  By the way, if your cat has sprayed on a door, wet a washcloth with DooDoo Voodoo and wipe the bottom (underneath side) of the door. Urine tends to soak into the wood there.

• Is there any special trick to applying DooDoo Voodoo to help ensure its success?
Not really, which is the great thing about DooDoo Voodoo vs. the other types of products out there that claim to remove pet urine odors.  As mentioned before though, for DooDoo Voodoo to be effective at killing odors, it must come in contact with all sources of odor, so make sure you get DooDoo Voodoo "outside the lines" a little bit.  Urine creeps horizontally, so the area that's soaked is going to be larger than the spot you see on the surface.  Once you’ve poured it on your carpet wherever a cat has urinated, use your shoe or the bottom of the DooDoo Voodoo bottle to tamp down the DooDoo Voodoo into the carpet’s backing and pad. Do this until you hear the characteristic squishing sound and see foaming on the surface of the carpet. That’s when you’ll know you’re doing it right and have probably applied the correct amount of DooDoo Voodoo.

• Is DooDoo Voodoo "safe"?
The ingredients in DooDoo Voodoo are biodegradable and are tolerated well by people and pets.  After use, the product naturally leaves behind nothing but oxygen and water.

The raw mixture we get from our chemist carries the same safety precaution rating as a well known professional product (for mold remediation, not pet odor control) that's touted as being the safest product out there; this is a product that's taking the professional world by storm.  Their website claims that their product carries less precautions than vinegar!  I'm not savvy enough about chemistry to make such claims, but it's a comfort to know that DooDoo Voodoo carries the same minimal precaution as such a widely known product that's talked about as the "greenest" product available.  (Their NFPA rating, taken from their website, is shown to the right.  Note that it's the same as DooDoo Voodoo's.)  Their sales reps are known to drink their product as part of their demonstration, but do NOT drink DooDoo Voodoo (even though its NFPA ratings are the same as the other product's).

It's important to mention that our product's rating is for the full-strength raw mixture we get from the chemist, not the diluted version customers use, which can be assumed to have an even better safety profile.

Our raw mixture carries a minimal-precaution rating on the NFPA 704 rating system, which states:  "The standard provides a readily recognized, easily understood system for identifying specific hazards and their severity using spatial, visual, and numerical methods to describe in simple terms the relative hazards of a material. It addresses the health, flammability, instability, and related hazards that may be presented as short-term, acute exposures that are most likely to occur as a result of fire, spill, or similar emergency."

The rating system uses the recognizable diamond logo as shown here, a generic example taken off the NFPA website.

Zero on this system means no/insignificant risk.  Four means severe risk.

DooDoo Voodoo carries a rating of one for health (which is classified as "slight") and zero for flammability and instability.  You can see a photo of our raw mixture's actual NFPA 704 label here.

To download the PDF file of DooDoo Voodoo's MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet), click here.  You'll need Adobe Acrobat to view the file, which is only 14KB in size.

While common sense dictates that you wouldn’t want to soak yourself, your pets or your children with DooDoo Voodoo (or any other cleaning product, for that matter), you can take peace of mind in knowing that DooDoo Voodoo’s ingredients are commonly considered to be safer than many other cleaning substances you probably have in your home right now.

Even knowing this, though, we’ll advise you not to ingest DooDoo Voodoo, leave it on your skin or get it in your eyes.  Common sense says you should always use precautions when using any cleaning product around people or pets.  DooDoo Voodoo Concentrate can dry your skin, so wear gloves if you’re sensitive, and be sure to wash & rinse your hands after using DooDoo Voodoo.  Ingestion causes irritation of the digestive tract, so please don't ingest DooDoo Voodoo.  Use with plenty of ventilation or perhaps a mask designed to control inhaled fumes.  (We've found the 3M Latex Paint & Odor Respirator model # R95 to work well.  It is available at most home improvement stores and sells for less than $6.  Here's a picture of the R95.)  If you have a reaction of any type to DooDoo Voodoo, stop using the product and seek medical immediate attention.  Keep pets away from treated areas until the areas have dried.  Rinse pets' feet with fresh water if they walk in DooDoo Voodoo so as to avoid drying of the pads of their feet.

• What’s the shelf life for DooDoo Voodoo as compared to other products?
DooDoo Voodoo has quite a long shelf life in both its RTU and concentrate forms. While other products, especially of the enzyme- and bacteria-based types, can lose their effectiveness if not used immediately, DooDoo Voodoo can still be used effectively for a number of years after it was mixed. Over time its slight citrus scent may lessen, but its effectiveness for its intended purpose will not if you store it correct.  That means not in bright light and not in high or low temperatures.  I suggest you keep it in the dark and in an area that's ~ 70 degrees. By the way, if the mixture separates (like milk & cream), just gently shake or rock the bottle before using DooDoo Voodoo.

• Does DooDoo Voodoo come with a money-back guarantee?
No, for a few of reasons.  First, because we can’t be at everyone’s place to personally observe that DooDoo Voodoo is correctly applied, which can obviously make all the difference in the world.  (By "correctly applied," I mean that DooDoo Voodoo comes in contact with ALL the urine or other odor-causing substance, and that the drying process is allowed to proceed unimpeded by accelerated mechanical drying or extremes of heating and cooling.)

Second, because we market DooDoo Voodoo primarily as a means of generating money that can be used in the fight against pet overpopulation.  This includes promoting shelter adoptions, promoting keeping pets for their entire lifetime, promoting spay/neuter in general and early-age spay/neuter in particular, our operating a private rescue facility where we provide lifelong care for special-needs animals and more.  Believe me, we sink a significant amount of our own money into promoting DooDoo Voodoo so we can get it into the hands of people (and their animals) who need it most.  DooDoo Voodoo costs us; it doesn't make us any personal money.

Third, because, without our dedicating a lot of laboratory time and money, we have no way of verifying that what you'd return to us is exactly what we shipped you.

However, the lack of a money-back guarantee shouldn’t stop you from purchasing DooDoo Voodoo and having the utmost confidence in it.  Why? As a successful worldwide businessman; as a high-level animal advocate since 1983; as the cofounder of two federally licensed animal charities; as the cofounder of a nonprofit low-cost spay/neuter clinic; as the founder of a charity foundation; as someone who's lectured at a statewide veterinary conference at the Purdue University Veterinary School; and as a person who for many years has devoted as much as 100+ hours each week to animal welfare without pay (while spending enormous amounts of our own money), you can trust my word when I tell you that DooDoo Voodoo works just as well as I say it does. I make no claims to be holier than thou, but I have, indeed, lectured repeatedly on ethics in business at the college level in multiple states and do my best to run our companies (and charities) by the Golden Rule.

Before we leave this subject, I want to mention that I’ve known many people who tried to get other so-called odor neutralizers’ makers to refund their money when their products didn’t work for the customer. Literally not one person I know has ever actually gotten his or her money back, because the products’ manufacturers always seem to find ways out of making good on their money-back guarantees. Here at Four On The Floor, just because we deal in Voodoo doesn’t mean we rely on smoke & mirrors.  We give you our word that DooDoo Voodoo works as well as we say it does.

If you perceive that DooDoo Voodoo isn't working as well as you expected it to, please read a PDF document we put together with some explanations and brief instructions you'll find helpful.  This VERY rarely comes up (only a handful of times over the years).  Don't give up the ship; read our PDF document.

• Does DooDoo Voodoo work on stains as well as odors?
Stain elimination is very often a welcome side effect of DooDoo Voodoo’s cleaning action, and we've seen it work some miracles (as shown on our Stain Removal page, Case Studies page and more), but we do not make any claims with regard to DooDoo Voodoo's ability to remove stains.  If your dog has pooped on your white carpet in the same spot for the last year, DooDoo Voodoo probably won’t return your carpet to its original shade of white, but then again, nothing would.  Having said that, it is truly amazing to see a spot of cat urine, poop or vomit disappear before your eyes within 3 or 4 seconds...not to mention there being no odor remaining at all after the area completely dries.  The degree to which DooDoo Voodoo may alleviate a stain will depend on a variety of factors, all of which are out of Four On The Floor's control, so we don't guarantee DooDoo Voodoo as being able to remove all stains.  A tip:  when working to remove a stain, it might help you to agitate the area with a soft-bristled plastic brush (such as is pictured here) or even an old toothbrush.  (Be sure no dried toothpaste remains in the brush first.)  Blot the area after agitating it.  Agitate gently so as to not fray your carpet or fabric fibers.  If you're trying to alleviate odor in the area, too, after agitating & blotting you should re-spray or re-pour DooDoo Voodoo on the area for residual odor and stain control.

• How strong should a mixture should I use if I'm desiring to mop a hard surface with DooDoo Voodoo?
We recommend that you use ½oz. of DooDoo Voodoo Concentrate per gallon of warm water.  This seems to afford good cleaning & odor control, yet will leave minimal residue.  If this seems too weak to you, bump it up a little.  You can mop hardwoods with DooDoo Voodoo like this, but the weaker, the better, so as to minimize residue.  You may desire to allow the DooDoo Voodoo mop water to dwell on the floor for 10 minutes or more, then rinse it with fresh water so as to not harm your floor's surface.  We have good success using DooDoo Voodoo with the Hoover FloorMate.  To learn more, visit our FloorMate page.

• Is DooDoo Voodoo color-safe?
We’ve never seen a single incident where DooDoo Voodoo bleached out a carpet, furniture or clothing. Still, our advice is to test DooDoo Voodoo on an inconspicuous spot first to determine whether it will alter the color of whatever it is you desire to treat.  Make sure the surface you're treating is water-safe.  We assume no liability for colorfastness.

• Does DooDoo Voodoo leave behind a strong scent?
Not once it dries, but while it's wet the amount of scent is obviously dependent on how strong your mixture is.  With 1/2 ounce per quart, you’ll likely have little, if any, scent remaining after 48 hours or so. With 3 ounces per quart, you’ll probably have a bit of citrus scent remaining, but it shouldn’t be enough that you’d notice it when you walk in your front door.  It bears repeating here that DooDoo Voodoo in no way is a cover-up for pet odors.  The slight citrus scent is a byproduct of DooDoo Voodoo’s scientific cleaning action, but in no way is intended to cover up odors.  Most users find the small amount of scent that’s temporarily left to be quite pleasing.  If we took out the scent, it would alter DooDoo Voodoo‘s scientific action.

• I've treated my pee spots, but under the blacklight they still show up.  Will this go away?
Probably not completely, but DooDoo Voodoo can indeed at times virtually alleviate this fluorescence (as shown on our Stain Removal page and Case Studies pages).  We have areas in our own living room (as featured in some of the photos in our literature, our advertisements and on this site) where you can't tell there was ever soiling.  Seriously — even under the strongest blacklight.

Now, I have a feeling that the fluorescence dissipated over time, thanks to the very careful subsurface extraction I performed on the area, followed up by pretreatment and conventional cleaning with our EDIC carpet cleaning machine.  But, in my opinion, and it's a very experienced opinion, I have not seen other products alleviate fluorescence for people the way Doodoo Voodoo has in our house.  I feel that this is a competitive advantage of Doodoo Voodoo, because cats can see ultraviolet light (UV); they use this ability to track prey by spotting the prey's urine trails.  So, the more fluorescence we can get rid of, the better.  Cat's likely return to the same spots to resoil not just because they can smell the previous soiling, but because they can SEE it.

In your case, the odor will be gone after treatment with Doodoo Voodoo, but the fluorescence you see under a blacklight may not go away completely.  Fluorescence can be worse with some types of carpet and upholstery than others, which has to do with the way the urine compounds react with certain types of fibers and dyes.  [A full understanding of this is above my pay grade, but I know it to be true from all the professional carpet cleaners I've spoken with and all the writing I've seen in professional carpet cleaning magazines and websites.]

BTW, if you or your professional carpet cleaner use a subsurface extractor on your areas, you can expect the remaining fluorescence to be reduced (perhaps greatly), but it is not likely to go away completely.

• My DooDoo Voodoo has become "milky" looking.  Does this affect its ability to do its job?
No.  Cloudiness has no affect on the effectiveness of DooDoo Voodoo.  We have found over time that differences in the water (hardness and temperature) you use to mix up your DooDoo Voodoo (if you purchased Concentrate) can be the cause of milkiness for some users.  In addition, we've been told by our bottle providers that variances in appearance may have to do with the blowing agent used during bottle manufacture.  We've used all appearances of DooDoo Voodoo and have found that variances are nothing to worry about.  On a related note, if your DooDoo Voodoo seems to separate like cream from milk, just gently shake the bottle, being sure not to spill any DooDoo Voodoo.

To illustrate my point, check out this photo:

These are bottles of Concentrate which I personally mixed.  I was painstakingly careful, and these bottles all came from the same master carton, yet notice how much variance there is in the appearance of the DooDoo Voodoo in the various bottles!  Same box of bottles, same ingredients, same water, same fellow doing the mixing (yours truly), so the only variable that would explain the visual variance is the bottles themselves.

• How quickly do you ship orders?
Many orders that come in before noon EST ship the same day.  The rest generally ship the next business day.  We ship SUPER Concentrate primarily via USPS, but some packages via FedEx.  Due to our animal rescue work, once in awhile we get tied up caring for a critically ill animal and delay shipments by a day, but this is rare.  We do our best to fill orders just as quickly as we'd want ours filled if we were the customer.

• Do I need to let my first application of DooDoo Voodoo fully dry before I do a second application?
It's best to wait until DooDoo Voodoo dries, which often takes longer in carpet pad and subfloor than folks think it will, as the final stages of drying are when the majority of the odor "kill" occurs.  Waiting 'til then will give you a better idea of how effective your first treatment was and how strong your subsequent treatment, if needed, should be.  We recently were reminded of the length of time drying can take when our rescued dog, Heidi (see above), peed in one of our bedrooms.  Even with the ceiling fan, a Total Shield air purifier on and the window open, it took days for the pad to fully dry.  During the drying time, the pee smell was still present, but not once the pad fully dried.

•  I'm having trouble making a PayPal purchase.  What do I need to do?
It's rare, but once in awhile a customer will say that when they click Add To Cart and then Proceed To Checkout, PayPal doesn't show them the correct information or doesn't behave in a way they expect it to.  We've discussed this with PayPal tech support and they say it can be due to a couple factors.  The first is that the customer may be using a browser other than Internet Explorer (if the operating system is Windows, of course).  The second is that the customer's computer may need its cache deleted (a leftover from a previous PayPal transaction, likely).  In the first case, simply try using Internet Explorer instead of an alternative browser.  In the second case, visit this link to view a PDF document we put together with instructions from PayPal tech support about how to clear your cache.  Another easy thing you can do is to refresh your page(s) by hitting the F5 key on  your keyboard.  If you try these tips and they don't work for you, simply call us at 317-440-0052 or e-mail us and we'll call you back to take your order manually.

•  Is there anything else you recommend I do to improve the cleanliness of my air and to keep my place smelling fresh?
We freshen our facility's air in a variety of ways that aren't really that expensive.  You can read more about this on our Freshen Air page.  One of our favorite new tools is Dr. Whitaker's NeoAir Plus Total Shield air purifier.  A benefit of the NeoAir unit is that it generates negative ions, which have been shown to have a calming effect on those who are in the room.  We've also used Breeze air purifiers from Vollara.  (The Breeze may be a discontinued model and may have been replaced with a newer one.)  When these work and are properly adjusted (not set at too high a setting), we find them to be highly beneficial, but we've had some service issues with our units (of which we own a dozen or more).

•  Is there anything else I can do to adjust my cat's attitude and behavior?
We have a large population of rescued, special-needs cats and have had fantastic results from giving them calming treats from Pet Naturals of Vermont.  Cats who previously wanted to shred each other now lie together and even eat & drink from the same dishes.  You can buy these at major pet supply retailers throughout the USA and online at www.LuckyVitamin.com.  Check with your vet to make sure these are compatible with your kitty, but if they are, we believe you'll see an improved temperament in your cat.  While there's no magic bullet for getting your cat to quit peeing and to start acting like an agreeable member of the family, we've found these calming treats to be a godsend.  Check 'em out.

•  Why does DooDoo Voodoo sometimes look clear and sometimes milky? Does this affect the product's effectiveness?
This is entirely normal and we see it from time to time, even among bottles produced in the same batch.  According to experts we've consulted, this phenomenon is due to technical aspects of the bottle manufacturing process, and has nothing to do with the DooDoo Voodoo contained in the bottles.  See this FAQ above for more, including a photo.

•  Can I use DooDoo Voodoo on leather?
Yes, as long as you follow our recommendations, which are outlined on our Leather page.  DooDoo Voodoo can be a godsend for odors on leather as long as you follow the guidelines and use common sense.

•  Can I use DooDoo Voodoo with or instead of my usual solution in my carpet-cleaning machine?  If I use them together, does this lessen my cleaning solution's effectiveness?
Generally, I and others find DooDoo Voodoo to be a suitable replacement for normal cleaning solution in most instances.

While it wouldn't impede the product's effectiveness, mixing DooDoo Voodoo with your usual solution isn't recommended, as it would be redundant and there's always the possibility of interaction between different solutions.  We generally recommend that DooDoo Voodoo be used instead of your usual solution, not along with it.  Even professional carpet cleaners in upscale locales like Telluride, CO, at times use DooDoo Voodoo instead of their usual solution.

If you used them together, you'd be spending extra money, you'd get too many suds and you would have too much soapy residue left over --- both in the carpet and in the machine.

If you want to clean your carpet first with your usual machine (a "maintenance cleaning"), then clean again with DooDoo Voodoo, that's fine with me.  But I wouldn't use the two solutions together.

Having said all that, I have found once in awhile that DooDoo Voodoo is not as effective for me on dark, greasy "traffic lane" soiling as certain commercial products I have tried.  (You likely are not dealing with this commercial-location type of ground-in soiling anyway, though.  It's often found inside front doors of commercial locations and is due to people tracking in dirt and asphalt particles from outside.)  If you have this type of soiling, do a maintenance cleaning first with your usual solution, then go over it with DooDoo Voodoo.

While many customers report that they use DooDoo Voodoo in their machines instead of their usual solution, I often find it easier to apply DooDoo Voodoo to carpet with a pump-up sprayer than to use it in my extractors (commercial or consumer-grade).  It seems to be easier for me to control how much wetness I put down in specific areas...and it's, in some ways, less work.  Let the product dwell for awhile, then do your usual agitation and extraction with your machine.  Be sure to run warm water through your machine afterward, as discussed on this site and in the instructions that come with your kit.

• Search Tool Results Sometimes Show Ads For Your Competitors.  Why?
The search tool built into the software I use to author this site, uh, doesn't work correctly.  There are other search tools you can buy, but they tend to be expensive --- which would push up your cost for DooDoo Voodoo.  The one I use, FusionBot, is free, but does show some paid Google results along with our own site's search results.  This doesn't bother us one iota, though, because most customers who purchase DooDoo Voodoo have already tried all the competing products and have found them not to be any match for DooDoo Voodoo.  Therefore, we don't feel threatened by the competitors' pay-per-click ads showing up.  In fact, we encourage you to check them out 'cause every time you click on them, it costs the competitors money!  Click over and over and over!

• How Many Square Feet Will Each Gallon Of DooDoo Voodoo cover?
This is a question we get frequently, but which is difficult to accurately answer.  People apply DooDoo Voodoo with the included trigger-sprayer bottle, with a paint roller, with a pump sprayer, with a gardener's sprinkling can, by wiping, by pouring and more.  As you can imagine, these various methods will yield vastly different results, coverage-wise.  Plus, carpet soaks up DooDoo Voodoo differently than hard surfaces...and hard surfaces that are in good condition don't soak up DooDoo Voodoo like hard surfaces that are uncoated (no paint or polyurethane), or that are coated, but the coating has degraded or chipped away.  Different types of carpet, pad and subfloor soak up DooDoo Voodoo differently, too.

All these factors make it difficult for us to give a definitive answer.  We can, though, take a cue from other manufacturers' guidelines.  For instance, Thompson's Water Seal says that a gallon of their product (which is applied in the same variety of ways as DooDoo Voodoo is) will cover 150 sq. ft. on plywood and 225 sq. ft. on wood with a smooth finish.  Note, though, that these figures are for harder surfaces that are much less porous than carpet and pad.

In professional circles, I have heard it said that it takes a gallon of RTU cleaning solution and 37.5 gallons of water to clean 300 square feet of carpet.  Thus, a professional's steam cleaner will use 125 gallons of liquid (water + cleaning solution) to clean 1000 square feet of carpet.

A professional mold remediation solution states that a gallon of their product, which is typically sprayed. fogged or wiped, will cover 1000-1200 square feet of hard surfaces.

Due to the porous nature of carpet and pad, and the great variance of width and depth of staining and odor penetration customers experience, we aren't able to give a similar rule of thumb.  We will say, though, that when customers buy more Concentrate than they at first think they need, they never tell us that they ended up with too much left over.  Never once has anyone told us they were sorry for buying too much Concentrate.

Note that we're talking here about the square footage of coverage you may attain with mixed DooDoo Voodoo, not raw Concentrate (sold through retailers or veterinary clinics) or SUPER Concentrate (sold through this website).  By doing some simple math regarding your dilution ratio, you can determine how many gallons of mixed (RTU) product you'll have...and how many square feet it will cover.  If you know how many square feet you need to cover, you'll then be able to determine how strong your mixture can be (without having Concentrate or SUPER Concentrate left over).  Note that we only rarely recommend a mixture that is stronger than 8 ounces of Concentrate (or 2 ounces of SUPER Concentrate) per gallon of water; much of the time we advise less, actually, especially on hard surfaces.

You can find info about using DooDoo Voodoo on hard surfaces on our Case Studies page, our Hoover Floormate page and our Trashed Wood Flooring page.  You also should check our Answers page.

• What Is The Best Way To Use DooDoo Voodoo In The Laundry?
If you have an item that has been soiled, whether by an animal or a human, and whether the soiling is urine, feces, blood, vomit, bile or anything else organic, you should soak the soiled areas with DooDoo Voodoo, let them set for as long as you can without their drying out, then launder them as usual.  Due to the catalyst nature of DooDoo Voodoo's scientific action, you should not use OxiClean or other oxygen boosters.  Just use your regular detergent (unless it contains an oxygen booster) and warm water, assuming your item can stand warm water.  If not, use cool water.

Many people ask if they should use DooDoo Voodoo in lieu of their regular detergent.  You certainly can, but do not expect a washing machine full of suds like you might get with your regular detergent.  We have used DooDoo Voodoo in this way in our animal rescue facility, where things get soiled every day, and have had success, but we also have used it the way I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Letting washable items presoak in the washer before it runs its usual cycle is recommended.

I recommend that you check your items after laundering to see if you deem the process a success.  If so, dry as usual.  If not, repeat the process without running your items through the dryer yet.

• You Say DooDoo Voodoo Contains One Or More Essential Oils.  Tea Tree, Which Is Dangerous To Cats?
No.  Though some people say that tea tree oil is safe for cats if used sparingly and in the right way, we feel it's better to stay away from tea tree oil.

• What Can I Do To Extend The Shelf Life Of My DooDoo Voodoo?
Keep it in a normal temperature; don't let it get too hot or too cold.  Keep in tightly closed.  Keep it out of sunlight, and as much direct light as possible.

• Does The Smell Of Pet Urine Have A Detrimental Effect On Health?
Absolutely, as we discuss on this page.  You can find a lot of information about this topic online, but here's some I found on eHow.com:

"Cat urine contains ammonia, which becomes stronger the longer it [sets].  Ammonia in liquid form at high levels can be quite corrosive.  Most cat urine does not contain enough ammonia to cause serious health problems; sometimes, however, if it is concentrated enough, perhaps because it has [set] too long in the litter box or seeped into the floor, it may cause unpleasant physical symptoms.

Many people suffering from cat allergies believe their pet's fur is the cause of their suffering.  This may not necessarily be true.  People with allergies have oversensitive immune systems, which causes them to be allergic to any number of things.  Often, cat urine is the culprit.

Symptoms of a cat allergy include coughing and wheezing; hives or rash on the chest or face; red, irritated eyes; and a runny, itchy or stuffy nose and sneezing.  Allergies aside, excessive cat urine can also cause other unpleasant physical effects such as headache, dizziness, sore throat, lightheadedness, nausea and vomiting.

Those [who] are exposed to highly concentrated cat urine ammonia, or are exposed to it over a lengthy period of time, are susceptible to developing serious illnesses and injuries such as bronchitis or pneumonia, burns to the trachea and lung irritation.  In extremely dire situations, people can experience asphyxiation (suffocation).

Breathing in ammonia irritates the airway, often making it difficult to breathe.  Coughing up phlegm is often a symptom of a respiratory infection.  Children are at greater risk for developing symptoms and illnesses due to the fact that their body weight ratio is lower than adults.

If your cat's urine regularly smells like strong ammonia [even though you practice good litter box hygiene --- Ed.], it may be a sign that he/she has a urinary tract infection and may need to see a veterinarian."

My late father used to joke:  "It's not that it smells that bad, but it burns my eyes and takes the curl out of my hair."  He was being facetious, but wasn't far from the truth!

The other aspect to this answer is that cats and dogs are nearer the floor, where heavier-than-air odors and fumes may congregate.  To allow them to perpetually live in a less-than-clean environment is obviously an insult to their health and wellbeing, so make DooDoo Voodoo an important part of your cleaning arsenal.

• I'm Not Sure Which Unit To Buy. Can You Please Compare The Two Types Of Blacklights?
Absolutely.  You can see photos of the two units and photos that compare how well the two units fluoresce organic contamination here.  [NOTE:  We no longer sell the little handheld units, but the comparisons shown at the link are useful to see anyway, especially if you're thinking of buying a little unit elsewhere.]

• How Much Stronger Than A Human's Is A Cat's Sense Of Smell?
I've asked a number of veterinarians about this over the decades and have gotten answers ranging from 10X to 100X to 1000x stronger.  I've never been able to get a definitive answer, but I will tell you that in the wonderful documentary The Lion In Your Living Room, which I highly recommend you watch, they say that a cat's sense of smell is 1000X stronger.

• How Wet Is Wet Enough:  How Much Doodoo Voodoo Do I Need To Saturate My Carpet & Pad?
Customers commonly ask us how much Doodoo Voodoo they'll need to treat their particular area.  Well, that depends on how you're planning to treat.  Will you be cleaning individual spots by spraying, blotting and wiping?  Will you be soaking spots and letting them air dry?  Will you be spraying the whole room, letting it dwell, then extracting with a carpet cleaning machine?  Will you be soaking typical carpet over pad for the purpose of doing subsurface extraction?  Will you be using a pump sprayer to wet down a gutted house's pee-soaked bare subfloor?  I could go on, but you get the idea.

I can't be there to guide your application process, so it is impossible for me to completely and accurately answer the question, but I can give you a solid answer for how much liquid it takes to wet typical carpet over pad or commercial carpet over no pad.  In the first case, say you want to saturate the fibers, backings, pad and perhaps wet the subfloor without introducing so much liquid that you super-saturate everything, including the subfloor (which could cause issues with leakage to adjacent areas).  You would need about 3 gallons to fully saturate pad and carpet in a 3'x3' area (which is 9 square feet or 1 square yard).  2 of those gallons are to saturate the pad and 1 gallon is to saturate the carpet.

If you're just dealing with thin commercial carpet without pad, it would take you less than 1 gallon to saturate (not flood) an area 3'x3' (again, this is 9 sq. ft. or 1 sq. yard).

If you're spraying a hard surface such as subfloor or drywall, I've heard estimates of per-gallon coverage being anywhere from 100 sq. ft. to 400 sq. ft., depending on how heavily you spray.  For the sake of illustration, 400 sq. ft. would be the amount of drywall on the walls of a room 12'x12' and with an 8' ceiling.  The floor of that room would be 144 sq. ft.

I can tell you that over the decades, I've NEVER ONCE had someone tell me they wished they'd have ordered less from us.  But I've had a ton of people say they wished they'd have ordered more.  Heck, even if you don't use it all immediately, Doodoo Voodoo has a very long shelf life if stored correctly (keep the container tightly closed, out of direct light and at typical room temperature or a bit cooler.)

If you have further questions about DooDoo Voodoo, feel free to e-mail us at info@doodoovoodoo.com.  We prefer not to answer questions by phone, which eats up our time & keeps us from serving the maximum number of customers, so please e-mail us if you can.  If you don't have e-mail, you can also fax us at 317-594-0938.  If you really, really need to call us, go ahead; we won't bite you.  Our voice number is 317-440-0052 and 317-762-ODOR.