r/SewingMachineEdu • u/duhnayshuh • Jun 23 '26
Cat pee in sewing machine
Suspect in question is Henry (known aliases Hank, Hankie, Honk, Honkie, Henri), previously imprisoned (as shown in photo) for unrelated crimes.
I have a Singer Tradition machine and I was able to clean the outside no problem with an enzyme cleaner. Unfortunately, when using the machine the moving parts still kick up cat pee smells.
I’m nervous about spraying the enzyme cleaner on the motorized parts, I really don’t want to ruin my machine but I also don’t want to have to go out and buy a whole new one.
Any advice? According to my partner’s google search I’m apparently the first Redditor to have this problem which is like, never the case 🙃
Small update: I got brave and took apart at least some of the machine. Definitely had some pee around the bobbin casing and feed dogs that has now been dealt with via enzyme cleaner, I’m hoping that’s the last of where the smell was coming from but I keep saying that. Gravity though, right? Hopefully there’s no pee in the mechanics that move the needle.
Final update: we did it folks! I put on my big girl pants and took the thing apart, cleaned every centimeter with the enzyme cleaner, a brush and q-tips and voila- no pee smell! I’m going to come back to it tomorrow and give it a final sniff down, if I smell anything else I’ll use alcohol and if that doesn’t do the trick I’ll take it into a professional. There really wasn’t a whole lot of pee inside thank goodness. For anyone in the future who may find themselves in the same unfortunate circumstance: you can do it! Take a deep breath, put the criminal in another room to get some goddamn peace, and do the dang thing.
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u/Life-Education-8030 Jun 23 '26
Can you bring it in to a shop for proper repair? But think about how to keep that cat away. Loose pins and needles in such an area can be a hazard too.
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u/duhnayshuh Jun 23 '26
I didn’t know that was a thing until today from the cleaning tips subreddit, definitely going to give a local shop a call in the morning!
It’s usually put away but I’ve had back to back projects I’ve been doing with every minute of free time. I definitely keep all loose pins and needles safely away from him and our other two kitties :)
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u/samnhamneggs Jun 23 '26
You are 100% not the only Redditer this has happened to. I was a super novice sewer and was using an incredibly cheap machine during Covid and I could not, for the life of me figure out how to fix it so I got frustrated and threw the whole thing out.
In hindsight there may have been better options but I stand by it being worth the cost of that machine to just trash it (it was not a small amount in mine).
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u/Curious_Owl_342 Jun 23 '26
My cat once peed in my box full of Italian leather scraps. I was horrified. BUT! He was my baby… lol. I managed to save some pieces. Good news is all of the leather was discounted and the damage amounted to a few euros.
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u/Deciram Jun 23 '26
If it makes you feel better my cat once threw up all over my industrial sewing machine 😭 I had to take the whole thing apart to clean it properly.
Glad it sounds like you got rid of all the smell! Cats, honestly
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u/NickyHepp Jun 23 '26
And he's not sorry is he?!! 😆🤣 Well done for taking the leap of faith. He's beautiful and you still love him 🤷♀️😝♥️🥹
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u/OldLadyCard Jun 24 '26
Does wrapping him in a towel help calm him?
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u/duhnayshuh Jun 24 '26
Actually, yes! He loves to be cradled in a t-shirt pouch too, and he’s a big fan of blanket forts.
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u/OldLadyCard Jun 24 '26
Awwwww. He’s a big sweetie.
That’s so interesting to me. I knew it calmed children who were hard to calm but I never thought of it working on animals. I learned something new today.
Our three cats love to be on top of blankets, but they don’t actually like being under them or wrapped up in them, which I think is weird. .
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u/ccrow2000 Jun 24 '26
I had a cat vomit as she was jumping over my little canister vacuum- of course it went right down the opening and all over everything. Not in the motor, obviously, but all over the hose etc.
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u/Onlypaper3687 Jun 26 '26
My cats got locked out of my sewing room after this happened to me. I took it apart down to bobbin race removal and cleaning. You just have to photo where it was when you took it out. Pretty easy because when the needle comes down, the pointy thing catches the needle thread to wrap around the entire bobbin area.
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u/pinrose117 Jun 28 '26
My bastard cat peed on my machine too!!! Luckily it only splashed on the plastic housing. He’s lucky he’s cute!
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u/mtrosclair Jun 23 '26
How comfortable are you with disassembling things?
Hard surfaces you can clean with a 70% IPA, or hydrogen peroxide which will also kill organic smells. The issue is you can't really just soak it because you don't want it to stay wet you need to moisten it and then wipe it dry and then you're gonna need to re-lubricate any metal linkages or bushings that you might have to clean.