Keeping Your Home Clean With Pets in Vancouver

Written by MaidEX Cleaning Services Editorial Team · Reviewed by Milad Hoseini, Founder & CEO · Published October 12, 2026 · 3 min read

Loving a dog or cat and loving a spotless home can feel like a contradiction, especially here. Metro Vancouver's wet winters mean muddy paws year-round, and our mild, humid climate keeps shedding season going longer than in drier parts of the country. The good news is you don't need to choose between a happy pet and a clean house — you just need the right routine for a few key problem areas.

Manage mud and wet paws at the door

Most of the dirt that ends up on your floors starts right at the entryway. A simple entry system stops it before it spreads.

• Keep an absorbent mat just outside and inside the door — two mats catch more than one.
• A cheap towel or microfibre cloth by the door makes a quick paw-wipe part of the routine.
• If you have a mudroom or laundry area near the entrance, use it as the official 'pet decompression zone' before they hit the carpet.
• On heavy rain days, a quick rinse of paws in a basin saves a lot of floor mopping later.

Stay ahead of shedding

Pet hair works its way into carpet fibres, upholstery, and air vents faster than most people expect. Brushing your pet two to three times a week, outside if possible, removes loose fur before it becomes a vacuuming problem indoors. A rubber-bristled brush or grooming glove pulls out undercoat hair that a regular brush misses.

For floors and furniture, a vacuum with a dedicated pet-hair attachment works better than a standard brush head. Microfibre cloths (slightly damp) are also surprisingly effective at lifting hair off hard surfaces and baseboards, where it tends to collect in drifts.

Control odour without masking it

Air fresheners cover up smells temporarily, but the better approach is removing the source. Washable bedding — for both pets and humans — should be laundered weekly if possible, since pet dander builds up fast in fabric. Litter boxes should be scooped daily and fully changed on a regular schedule; placement matters too, since a box tucked in a poorly ventilated closet will trap odour far more than one in an open, airy spot.

Baking soda sprinkled on carpets and upholstery, left for 15–20 minutes, then vacuumed, is a low-cost way to neutralize odour between deeper cleans. For accidents on carpet or hardwood, clean them as soon as you notice them — the longer pet urine sits, the harder the odour is to fully remove.

Protect your floors and furniture

Hardwood and laminate floors are vulnerable to scratches from claws, especially with larger or more active dogs. Keeping nails trimmed helps, as does placing rugs or runners along the paths your pet uses most, like from the door to their bed or water bowl.

For furniture, a washable throw or cover on favourite spots means you're laundering fabric instead of deep-cleaning upholstery every time. If you do need to tackle set-in stains on carpet, our guide on removing carpet stains by type covers specific approaches for pet accidents versus food or liquid spills.

Know when it's worth calling in help

Even with a solid routine, pet hair, dander, and ground-in mud build up in places that are easy to miss — under furniture, inside air vents, along baseboards, and deep in carpet pile. A periodic professional clean resets the whole house and catches what daily upkeep can't.

At MaidEX, you can book online and see an exact, itemized price in about a minute, choosing either a flat-rate package or hourly service with a 3-hour minimum. Cleaners are insured, and we try to send the same team to your home each visit, which helps when you want someone familiar with your pet's routine (and where the vacuum needs to go). Recurring bookings also save from the second clean onward — roughly 5% monthly, 10% bi-weekly, and up to 15% weekly — which suits homes with pets especially well, since the upkeep never really stops.

General house cleaning in BC is PST-exempt, so you only pay the 5% federal GST on top of the service price. And if a cleaner notices something during the visit — a loose baseboard your dog has been chewing, or a leak near the litter box — our Spot Report feature means it gets photographed and reported straight to you, not just left for you to discover later.

About the author

Milad Hoseini

Founder & CEO, MaidEX Cleaning Services

Written by the MaidEX Cleaning Services Editorial Team and reviewed by Milad Hoseini, who founded MaidEX in Vancouver. MaidEX provides insured, background-checked cleaning across Metro Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. More about MaidEX →

How this guide was made

This guide draws on MaidEX's hands-on cleaning experience across Metro Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, along with publicly available sources. It was drafted with the help of AI tools, then reviewed and fact-checked by our editorial team and approved by Milad Hoseini, Founder & CEO, before publishing.