Selling your home is a real art form. The marketing! The staging! Yet there’s one thing that you, Joe or Sally Homeowner, often forget: Would-be buyers don’t care how much you love your pets. And they’re not interested in seeing — or smelling — evidence of Fido or Fifi.

So how do you scrub all evidence of your pets from your home before you sell it, especially if you’ve lived there with them for a decade or more?

• Make your pet scarce.
• Go on a hair hunt.
• Find trouble spots on the floor.
• Tackle the carpeting. Leave this job to the professionals!
• Clean up your hardwoods. A little sun light can show EVERYTHING!
• Touch up the walls. The lower half of the wall can see a lot of action from Fido or Fifi.
• Clean the air! Go ahead and have the furnace and ac unit cleaned, you’ll be thankful you did during an inspection.
• Discover the scent to sell. Go ahead and bake that delicious apple pie right before a showing or an open house.
• Get out the scrubbing bubbles. Those spots where your pets hang out, might be slinkier than you think.
• Bag odors. If you need to leave a mattress for staging but Fido sleeps on it every night, go ahead and bag those odors in.
• Consider buying an ozone machine. Your lungs will thank you as well!
• Call in a pro! Yep, sometimes we just need to break down and let the pros take care of it.