Background: we have three cats and a dog. The cats are indoor/ outdoor animals and we don’t have a litter box (normally*).
One of the cats, Petey, will go in my bedroom, and sometimes the kids’, and mark in one of three or so places. Sometimes he will in a couple spots in the front room. As soon as we see it, we clean it up using paper towels and some diluted Pine Sol in a spray bottle. This was an infrequent thing, but it’s been getting more frequent in the last couple weeks.
He’s an older cat, but we have no idea how old; we adopted him from a niece who had adopted him from someone else.
I did some research online and most advice tells you to clean the cat box. We normally don’t have one, nor needed it often in the past. (see below) One site advised using an enzymatic cleaner, which I’m going to get today. They also mentioned using an orange based cleaner. They also said to make a repellent spray from citrus. I like the sound of that.
Anybody had luck with dealing with this problem? I’ve had it up to here with the stink. I’m so mad at the cat that my hair hurts.
We do right now because one of the cats, not the one peeing, was sick and is confined to the house. Petey won’t use it.
If a cat started peeing where they didn’t used to, I’d suspect a urinary tract infection and get them to the vet. I don’t know if that advice still applies with a cat who always used to pee in the house, just not as frequently.
Yeah, he’s spayed. I don’t think it’s a UTI. He has sprayed on occasion ever since we got him, it’s just more frequent now. I think it’s because we have a sick cat and he’s being shitty about it. I mostly just want to figure out how to get him to stop.
If males get neutered later in life, they often don’t lose their territorial marking behavior. We had a tom cat who would mark inside too. He would only do it when he was stressed or needing attention. What worked for us was Closing Doors–he would generally mark in bedrooms…or on my clean basket of laundry :mad: and enzymatic cleaner. You need to remove the smell completely, or he’ll keep on marking that spot.
Also some cat friends have reported that Feliway spray did the trick. Good luck!
We had a cat that started refusing to climb into the litter box, and we found out later she had developed arthritis. We put puppy pads in a puppy pad holder, and she used that. Might be worth a try. If you can get some of its pee on the initial puppy pad that might help get things going, if you want to try this.
Yeah,confine him to a specific area. Spray bottle with water, if you catch him in the act squirt him in the hip area, once. And remove him from the area. Clean the spot. Immediately forgive him, and let him back in. If he does it again, repeat. (Ha, Pete and repeat:)). The idea is to catch him and punish. Reward when he’s good.
Good luck, this is a hard one.
And, don’t be mad at Petey, he’s stressed about something.
And please get him checked out by a vet–you might not think he has a problem but his body may disagree with you and kidney problems in older cats are nothing to mess around with. Also, get some Nature’s Miracle or the like, Pine Sol does not do the job.
Oh, please take him to the vet.
My cleaning solution is diluted mentholated alcohol in a spray bottle and paper towel. Careful on wood furniture with that solution.
For what it’s worth, all four of my cats will snatch a slice of orange out of your hand and munch on it. Citrus grosses out some cats, but by no means all. Cougar piss might keep kitty away from an area, or it might be seen as a challenge.
OP’s cats normally go outside, yes? I wonder if there might not be something new and scary out there–maybe a family of raccoons, coyotes, other wildlife that makes “In the house” seem like the last frontier to your cat?
Even feral cats moving through your yard and marking can stress a house cat out.
Petey might think he’s protecting his family from the bad guys outside.
Thanks for the tips, folks. I found some enzymatic cleaner, so I’ll get scrubbing. I’ll also see if he has a citrus aversion. I hope so, because that’s a pleasant fix.
I’m pretty sure he’s just marking rather than a urinating issue, but I’ll have him checked out. I don’t think that I can discount the possibility that he’s just an asshole sometimes.
He may be stressed. He’s done nonsense like marking our luggage as we’re ready to walk out the door on a trip. Like I said, an asshole.
Seconded. I had a cat who started doing that, and it turned out to be severe diabetes. I had to give him insulin for a short while, but eventually his blood sugar stabilized with low-carb cat food and he lived several more years after that.
I’m seconding this. I’ve had dozens of cats over the years, and a few of them have just been spoiled obnoxious assholes that enjoy upsetting the peace in my house. I’ve probably spent thousands of dollars over the years taking perfectly healthy pets to the vet for behavioral problems, which I was hoping had a medical explanation.
The best outcome for the OP would be to discover that Petey’s behavior is caused by some malady. Fix the malady, problem solved. So, Jumpbass, definitely take him in to rule out any treatable reason for his behavior. But I don’t think there is a cure for being an asshole :mad:
We struggled with random cat pee all over the basement for years, until our teenagers grew up and stopped having the job of cleaning the litter box–who would have thought that the careless attitude toward cat box cleaning from teens would make a cat not want to use it?
These days the litter is cleaned daily and they do not pee anywhere else. Thankfully.
We had the same issue and tried everything. He kept ruining our furniture and we couldnt leave anything on the floor. You can NOT get that smell out of things. I took him to the vet and he said it only gets worse with age.
Sad to say after about 7 years of this we had him put down.
You’re fucked. Once older cats start peeing on places in the house, unless you rip up the carpet, floorboards and completely 100% mitigate the piss they will continue to go back to those spots over and over. Unless you feel like getting rid of the cat, just get used to the cat piss smell in the house, until they die.