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By Erik Hare

Pets are a wonderful addition to any family. But they can make life complicated when it’s time to sell.

Teresa has written before about how difficult it can be to have a pet in the house for a showing. When I sold my condo many years ago, my REALTOR did a showing when I wasn’t available to take the pets out. My cat, who was usually friendly at first but had a distinct personality disorder, wound up escaping to the roof. When my REALTOR tried to get her down, he was attacked rather savagely. No more surprise showings for us!

Getting the pets out for the showing is the easy part. The real problem with pets is that they invariably leave a whiff of their presence behind in at least one corner of the house. My current house had a section that was mistaken for a litter box by the big tomcat that lived there, and the smell lingered months after he left. When the floors were refinished a year after that, it came back yet again.

The biggest problem with pet smells is that the owners have become used to them. Yes, it’€™s the owner’€™s responsibility to clean the house and have it ready for showing. But "clean" to them is not going to be clean enough. An outside opinion is needed to be sure that traces of little fluffy are really gone. It takes a lot of baking soda based cleaner to get that smell out, and usually days of fresh air. In the winter, an ozonating air freshener can help out if opening the windows might prove deadly.

In my house, we have so many cats running around that I am more than a little sheepish when it comes to admitting  the exact number. And that doesn’t count the roving balls of fur that sometimes seem to have a life of their own. How would this house get ready to sell? The short answer is that I fully intend to die in this house, because there’€™s no way I’d ever get all the pet related leavings out of here.

I do love my fur children, but I know that not everyone feels the same. It can be difficult enough when we are entertaining to keep them at bay. Sellers need to understand that for a potential buyer to be able to imagine their life filling out the walls one of the first things that has to happen is for the previous life to be absent. When you have pets, that requires a lot of extra work.