I am asking this on behalf of a friend.
She has a cat that for some reason has taken to pooping outside the litter box. The cat is only 5 years old and she has been to the vet to see if there are any problems and none were found. Seems healthy as can be.
So, seems behavioral. The cat is a semi-outdoor cat. It eats and sleeps indoors but spends some time roaming outside.
Any ideas how to get the cat to use the litter box again?
Make sure the litter box is clean - they can smell better than we can, so even if it doesn’t smell to a person, if it hasn’t been dumped & re-filled with fresh litter in awhile, the cat may not like it.
Make sure to get the smell out of the carpet where he’s going now. Again, they can sometimes smell it even if we can’t. I’ve always had the best luck with straight rubbing alcohol, if it won’t hurt the surface you’re cleaning.
ETA: Any changes to the litter box can cause them to avoid it, too - new litter, a new box, etc. One of our cats adamantly refuses to use a covered box.
We had this problem about 3 years ago. My daughter decided she was going to change the cats diet AND his litter box material. He did not care for that! And he started pooping in one particular spot outside the box.
We put the right litter back and gave him his old diet–and 99% of the time he would use the box, but he still would occasionally use that spot on the carpet.
Now this will sound weird, but it worked. I cleaned the area then sprayed lemon scented sprays over the area. Then from a website I found online I did the following: Spread a large sheet of plastic over the area, and put tinfoil along the edges. According to this web site cats don’t like the feel of tinfoil and/or plastic.
It worked–over the next two weeks I would roll the edge back about a foot and eventually just took it away and he has never gone there again and just uses the box. So whether the lemon spray worked, or just effectively blocking him from getting to the spot worked-I couldn’t tell you.
Plus it also allowed me and my daughter to play a great practical joke on my wife! After the plastic had been up about a month, we all went clothes shopping for my daughter to go back to school. When my wife and daughter were in the clothing store, I stole over to Spencers and bought some fake poop (yes I bought fake poop I admit it). Later that day I pulled my daughter aside and told her she needed to distract Mom when we got home.
So we get home, she distracts Mom and I run into the room and place the fake poop on the carpet. Then I yell out ‘damn it Bowie (the cat)–not again!!’ and my wife and daughter come running in and see the poop on the carpet. My wife is upset of course and she starts going over to look at it (now fake poop looks good from a distance but not so real up close)…so I barge past her and say ‘damn it cat, I have had it’ and I grab it! She is like :eek: and me and my daughter collapse in hysterical laughter. Man I still laugh at seeing her face when I grabbed that poop.
later she told me she was thinking, he isn’t going to be touching me ever again with those hands.
good luck on the poop issue!
Is there more than one cat in the house? If so, are there at least as many litter boxes as there are cats? Some cats won’t share. Other cats will share seemingly happily for years, then suddenly decide they don’t want to any more.
Any recent changes in the litter box? That would include a smaller box, a switch from an uncovered box to a covered one (or vice versa), a change in the position of the litter box, or a change in the litter. You’re best off finding a litter box setup, including all these elements, that your cat likes, and sticking with it. You shouldn’t be buying whatever brand of litter is on sale this week.
Is the litter box in a reasonably quiet and private corner of the house that the cat can get to easily? Is there anything near the litter box that might make noise and frighten a cat- things like a washing machine or air conditioner (if this had happened in the winter a furnace might be the culprit)? Are you sure nobody’s doing something like closing a door that keeps the cat from getting to the litter box?
It might have been the lemon. Some cats dislike the scent of citrus.
Your friend isn’t using any kind of scented product to clean the litter box, is she? If she’s using a lemon-scented product, the cat might not like the smell of it. If she’s using a product with bleach to clean it, she should make sure to get all the bleach out of the box before the cat uses it again. Bleach + urine = chlorine gas, which might be unpleasant enough for the cat to make it want to go elsewhere.
This is what I did when one of my cats started pooping in the dining room. I put down a layer of Saran Wrap and aluminum foil over that. I put this in spots around room. I found a little puddle of pee on it once, but that’s all. It’s been a year, and no more problems. We left the foil out for about three months though.
ETA: We’re housetraining a new puppy now, and using a half and half vinegar-water mixture in a spray bottle when she has an accident. Much cheaper than Febreze or those pet sprays. It’s hard to tell how it’s working, but at least she hasn’t had an “accident” in the same place twice. 
Get a dog. The cat still poops on the carpet, but the dog eats it before you can see it. Problem solved.
Taser. Make sure you tase the cat every time it poops, even if you do not see the poop until several days after the event. If the cat gets wise to you and runs and hides, you may have to tase it when it comes out to eat. Just use a treat, tuna maybe, to lure it out of its hidey-hole and then when it starts to eat, BLAMMO. This should solve the problem in a couple of days…
Just kidding, sorry I am not sure what came over me there… I had 3 cats (down to 1 now, she is 19 years old , the two that passed were 14 and 16) and one of mine did this for a while. I was never able to get him to completely stop (though, come to think of it, I never did try a taser), but I was able to greatly reduce it with a diet change. It seems he was having some digestion problems that a vet was able to identify; I would recommend a check up just in case. Other than that, I have heard plastic works, but that has been mentioned above.
The method I used was to inconvenience rather than punish the cat. She’d only do it at night so first thing I’d start getting out her food then make out I’d suddenly noticed the poo. I’d make a huge and noisy production out of the clean up, apparently ignoring the cat, directing my stomping and swearing at the poo. Only when it was all done would I “remember” I’d been in the middle of feeding her. It took about a week for the penny to drop.
Cats aren’t stupid. Put the litter box in the same room where everyone else goes pee/poo, your bathroom. Keep the door open when not in use and the box clean, and watch your cat for awhile. When you see it sniffing around, pick it up and put it in the bathroom where the litter box is and close the door for 5-10 minutes, and then let it back out regardless of if it ‘went’ or not. She/he will eventually get the idea.
Later you can move the box to another location and the cat should follow.
This worked? That’s AWESOME!!! 
One of my cats is not very food-oriented and also quite dumb, bless her heart, but the other one is thoughtful and very, very aware of when his mealtime should be. I could see this working with one but not the other. Love it!!
Cork.
I had this problem once. The cat started pooping in the dining room, always in the same spot. What I did was: I picked up the litter box and placed it in the dining room, in the exact spot where she’d been pooping. Then I very gradually moved the box back where it belonged, over the course of a week. End of problem.
I love my cat stickers but i’m ready to give up. For the last 8 months he has decided that pooping right in front of his litter box is the new in thing. He poops in front then scoops the litter from the box to cover it. Seriously! He knows how to use the box and what is for because he takes litter from the box to cover his mess. He’s three now. We have three cats and just in the last 6-8 months he has decided to do this. We went out and bought a new litter box thinking he doesn’t want to share with his brothers any more like he did. Nope that didn’t work. We changed thier food 3 months ago from a very low end food to a high end food (cats eat better than I do now) thinking that would help…NOPE. The litter has always been the same so he can’t be unhappy with that. He never messes any where in the house but in the litter room on the carpet. He has no illnesses healthy as can be. The only thing that has changed was a washer and dryer was installed in that area. He still goes pee in his litter and he only poops at night…machines aren’t running then. The other two cats who are 2 and 1 have no issues. Stickers is a diva and well loved and spoiled. In fact he acts more like a dog sometimes. He is my husbands dog lol. They play tag together and my husband gets stickers to roll over like a dog and play dead. He is a beutiful cat and I love him so much, but my daughter is expecting my first grand baby (42 and a grandma yeshhh to young for that lol:smack::smack:) I can’t have my kitty pooping in the house. if any one has any ideas I would appreciate all the help I can get.
Thank you
.22 rifle works really well.
Cork 'im.
ETA : Shit. Beaten by two years…
Joe