Neighborhood rallies to save house drenched in cat urine

When Linda McGuire and her wife, Anne Burnside, decided to take on renovating a small house on Ronalds Street in Iowa City, they weren't sure they would succeed.

The challenge? Saving a historically significant home that was saturated with cat urine.

McGuire and Burnside had lived next door to the house since 1976, when a family of six lived there. It wasn't until more recent times that the cats moved in.

The last owner took in about 30 cats after the Floods of 2008. Then she moved out and left the cats behind; though they still were being fed and given water, they peed throughout the house. The smell seeped into the walls and floors and was so pungent that McGuire could smell it at her own house next door.

When the cat's owner sold the house, rental company Prestige Properties bought it and asked Iowa City's Historic Preservation Commission for permission to demolish and rebuild, saying the smell made the home unsalvagable. It proposed replacing the 1,200-square-foot structure with a much larger house.

The proposal alarmed McGuire and other neighbors, who worried a giant house in the middle of their block would disrupt the flow and character of the neighborhood. A group of 11 Northside neighborhood residents submitted their own report to the Historic Preservation Commission, highlighting the historic characteristics of the house. They cited the shared 'commons” of their backyards, which would be interrupted by the planned development. Ultimately the commission ruled in their favor.

After the decision, Prestige Properties decided to sell, and in May 2015 McGuire and Burnside decided to buy.

Instead of tearing the house down, they tackled the cat urine smell by tearing everything out down to the studs. Just as the neighborhood had banded together in the fight with Prestige Properties, they banded together on the restoration. Neighborhood work days saw residents from around the Northside show up to lend a hand tearing out drywall and floor boards.

'It was another way for our neighborhood to feel like a community,” McGuire said. 'They helped with the legal process and they helped by getting dirty. It really gave the neighborhood a boost.”

As they did the work, they found historic artifacts and markers, like initials and a date, 'J.M. 17” inscribed into concrete in the basement - they suspect the house was moved to its current lot in 1917. The Historic Commission's report on the house says it was likely built in 1889 and later moved to the Northside, possibly from a location near the Iowa River where the Iowa Memorial Union is now located.

As neighbors pulled the drywall down, they found everything from children's toys to glass alcohol bottles that had fallen - or been hidden - in the walls over the years. They removed 13 tons of materials and scrubbed whatever remained extensively with a mixture of water, Pine Sol and sawdust to remove the smell before they started rebuilding.

McGuire said the odor was so pernicious it started haunting her.

'I could lie in bed at night at just imagining that smell. I can still imagine that smell,” she said.

But despite the stench, their efforts were successful; walk into the house now and no hint of the former odor remains.

Indeed, the house is transformed. Working with architect John Shaw, McGuire and Burnside knocked down walls to open up the living room and raised the kitchen ceiling, creating an airy, open main floor, complete with a master bedroom and bathroom and a half-bath off the kitchen. The gabled ceilings of the second floor left no space for a conforming second bedroom, though the second level offers space for a sitting room or office.

The master bathroom and kitchen are remodeled with modern IKEA cabinets and new appliances. The bathroom's shower, with a rainfall glass wall, is wide enough for a wheelchair to roll into - McGuire said they plan to move into the house when they grow older. She is a member of TRAIL, Tools and Resources for Active and Independent Living, an organization that promotes aging-in-place. In the meantime, McGuire and Burnside are renting the house out; tenants so far have been visiting academics and UI Writer's Workshop attendees.

Along with the modern cabinetry, they added historically accurate touches like tall, three-piece base boards, which would have been period appropriate to the early 1900s. They installed new hickory floors with beautifully-patterned wood taken from trees knocked down in storms in Northeast Iowa. The only original woodwork they were able to save on the main floor were the casing and rosettes around the front living room window.

The renovation took more than a year, but McGuire said at the end of the day, all the work was worth it. She and Burnside were even recognized by the Iowa City Historic Preservation Commission with an award for historically appropriate rehabilitation at the end of January.

'There is a sense of deep pride and accomplishment looking at what a big project it was,” she said.

Comments: (319) 398-8434; alison.gowans@thegazette.com

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