I’ve done the research, and I’ve tried everything. But, our two ten year old cats are spraying and peeing in the living room ever since the new baby came home.
They’ve been to the vet and they check out normal for infections or crystals. We’ve cleaned up with enzymatic cleaners and had the carpets professionally cleaned. We’ve used felliway in both the spray and plug in. We’ve put foil on the ground to dissuade them from their “favorite” areas, which tends to just shift their favorite areas around. There are four litter boxes for them, and they are kept clean. It’s been four months now, and nothing seems to work.
So, I know this is a common problem, but has anyone actually succeeded at fixing it? Is it just a matter of time, or am I wasting my time?
I’d love an answer too. My cats are both 18 years old, both of sound mind and very healthy. I never had litterbox problems until we brought another cat home a few months ago.
One cat is fine and the other is spraying the heck out of my bedroom which she considers her sanctuary. She’s telling the new cat to keep out with her pee barricade. It’s not very cozy when your bedroom smells like pee.
We tried everything you tried. Steamed cleaned the carpet, washed all the bedding, used a ultraviolet light to detect and clean any leftover pee spots, Feliway diffusers, aluminum foil and finally gave the new cat to my boyfriends mom.
She still marked the bedroom and we put a new litter box in her main marking spot with Cat Attract litter. So far so good, as she’s still urinating in the bedroom, but only in the litter box. I was told, after a few weeks, move the litter box a couple inches a day, little by little until you place it in a preferrable spot.
I want it out of my bedroom and the goal is to get it down the hall into the back office.
I know in the OP you state they are spraying everywhere, so I don’t know if this will help, but I was also told that cats will not spray where they eat, so maybe changing their feeding spot might help a little in the stinkiest spot.
This is only a temporary solution for us and I imagine we will be back to square one soon enough as we are expecting a new baby this April and the jealousy will start all over again.
If anyone has a miracle answer I’d pay big bucks to hear it…
Our cat did the same thing when we brought our first baby home from the hospital. We tolerated/attempted-to-stop this behavior for a couple of weeks, and then finally “solved” the problem by donating the cat to the local SPCA. Given that she was an adult cat, I’m pretty sure what her eventual fate was.
Cruel, perhaps. But cat pee all over the rugs isn’t a healthy environment for a baby, and when the choice was between our child and our cat the choice was clear.
I hope that you manage to solve your problem in a different way, but we haven’t regretted our decision at all.
The vet prescribed amitriptyline - a human antidepressant - for our cat when she started peeing on our bed. We gave it to her for a month or so as I recall.
It broke the habit/cycle and since then she has never peed anywhere except her litter box. That was four years ago.