A littlel background before I get to the question: I live in a 3-bedroom apartment w/ two roommates. Each roommate has two cats (yes, it’s very much like a Stephen King movie in my home, why do you ask?). Anyway, recently one of the cats has begun peeing on the bed of the roommate she doesn’t belong to. She doesn’t get along well with the other female cats.
They’ve lived together since September 1 of this year with no issues, and all of a sudden she’s decided to start marking her territory. Is there any advice I can give my roommates on how to deal with this? What is a good way to make her stop? They are going to put out an extra litter box today.
Is this a new kitty to the household? When we first got my cat, he was doing his business all over the house. It turned out that he hated the clumping cat litter that we had put in his box. As soon as we changed to the non-clumping kind, he never did it since. Maybe a change of kitty litter brand or type is all that is needed. Good luck! I know how frustrating it is. Sometimes I wish cats could talk…
Nope, the kitty is not new. They’ve all been together for a few months now, and nothing has change recently. My roommate’s calling the vet this week, to see waht he recommends.
The issue may well be “deeper” than the sheets. The vet may be able to recommend a good treatment to completely eliminate the odor from the mattress. Because the odor needs to be eliminated beyond what humans can detect, or it will keep attracting the cat/cats.
Keeping the door to that bedroom closed seems like sound advice. Additional litter box is also good, especially placed somewhere you can make sure no other cats are intimidating her when she tries to use it.
Also, it may not be a cat that is disrupting the household, this may be directed at the roommate who’s been the victim. Cats are pointed that way.
Sometimes this sort of behavior can be touched off my a medical problem. Say the cat has a UTI and feels pain when she pees. She associates the pee with the litterbox, so she starts avoiding it. Then she’s got these scented locations to keep coming back to… since your roommate is contacting the vet, you may be able to rule that out as the problem. In addition to making litterbox changes as others have suggested, you might have to “retrain” the cat to use it, generally by confining her to a small room with the litterbox in it.
In the interim, the roommate with the peed-on bed should shut her door and keep that beastie out.
We think that, barring a medical problem, the reason she is doing this is that now that she has gotten used to the apartment and feels comfortable, she is getting territorial. The bed she pees on is usually occupied by my other roommate’s cats, who she doesn’t get along with as well.
The most common cause is the litter box not being clean enough- or there not being enough boxes. Some cats want their own box. Some cats want the box to be scooped twice a day.
Get an extra box, and everyone scopp more often.
But yes, that area does have to be cleaned completely to get the smell out, or she’ll come back. Turn the mattress also.
You also could try spraying the area with Feliway. It helps with behaviour problems, especially those related to spraying, marking and urinating.
My cat decided to pee on my bed a couple times. I took some advice from the Dope and set out a bowl of food there, as cats won’t pee where they eat, and my cat was definately more of a fan of eating than anything else. I left a food bowl there for like a week, and it worked. He never peed anyplace inappropriate again.
We have a similar problem here. One cat was peeing on the basement floor, and the other peed on my couch a few years ago. I’ve been away for awhile and Cat#2 has been peeing on the couch again. For the Cat#1 what we did was switch to clumping cat litter. If the box is cleaned regularly then he’ll use it. So now we clean it daily and we only have the occasional problem, which may be the dog.
When Cat#2 peed on my couch, I put a seperate litter box in my room with scoopable litter. Which I kept clean. I also cleaned the couch really well. Since I spend all my time in here, I managed to watch his habits, and I gave him a treat everytime he went where he was supposed to go: in the little box. It worked until I went away. No one kept the box here clean.
So I’m starting all over again. This time cleaning the couch much more better than I did previously. I’ll start the treat part again, and also use a cat repellant on the areas where I don’t want him to go. Hopefully I’ll get him back on track again.
I find the best is what others have suggested, keeping the litter box clean.
Several suggestions for de-peeing: (I have an un-housebroken rescued dog. I know all about de-peeing the house!)
• If you can smell it, but can’t see it and can’t find it, go rent, borrow or buy a black light. Wait until it’s dark. Seal out all light from the room and go over horizontal surfaces with the black light. If you find any spots that glow white… you’ve found cat pee! (Or some other human bodily fluid, in which case, don’t feel compelled to share that with us!)
• Once you’ve found the pee… if it’s still wet, white vinegar will neutralize the ammonia in pee, which is what makes it smell like cat pee. My dog occasionally pees on the bed and I’ll wash the bedding in hot water, adding 1/2 cup to a cup of white vinegar, plus the regular laundry soap. Rinse in cold.
• If the pee is dried when you find it, go to a pet store and pick up Nature’s Miracle. It is named appropriately and when used correctly, has an enzyme that breaks down the ammonia and once again, gets rid of the pee smell so kitty won’t go back to the same spot.
After a check up at the vet, I’d assume this is a territory issue and has nothing to do with any medical causes nor is this litter-related. Sometimes in a group setting, cats will spontaneously decide they’d like a different rank in the heirarchy, thank you very much, and will do weird things to get there. Some cats will pick fights, some will pee or poop in another’s territory. Like people, all cats are different in their response to the eternal quest for rank in the social pecking order.
Finally, never, never use bleach to clean up pee. Pee contains ammonia, and as we all know, bleach and ammonia can cause deadly toxic fumes when combined.
I would start with a physical exam. If no pathology, then there are a ton of different modalities, often ending up with psychotropic drugs (Buspirone/Diazepam/etc).
Cats are very territorial. The real oddity is why a cat in a multi-cat household does noy eliminate innappropriately.
I had a cat that hated one of my roommates, and would constantly pee in his bed. He, of course, was pretty pissed off about this.
Then, because someone was visiting, and the roommate was out of town, I ended up sleeping in his bed for a night. The cat never peed in it again. I don’t know if she thought “Hey, I can’t pee here anymore because the human I love might have to use it,” or if it was coincidence or what.
Territory or Behaviour issues are both possible. But humans are notoriously bad at litter box maintenence, and even the best cat will go elsewhere if the box isn’t suitable. It is also the easiest problem to solve. And- sometimes another box solves the territorial issue, so really- always go for the box as a solution first. More & cleaner boxes.
If that is solved, then you go on to the more difficult to solve issues.
We have 4 cats, all 100% indoor animals. ( All male, although I doubt gender is relevant in this thread ).
Has it occurred to you to maybe throw out all of the litter boxes and buy new ones? Then, from day 1, use litter box liner bags. They are very cheap plastic bag “liners”. You can then throw out the waste, and not have the urine and hormone scents absorb into the plastic of the litterboxes.
Emptying them more frequently will not work if there is a scent embedded into the box plastic.
My roommate took her cat to the vet and she is fine, so it’s not medical.
Also, she bought a special detergent (I don’t know the name) to get the smell out of the bed and sheets. Unfortunatley, my other roommate can’t flip her mattress b/c it’s a pillow-top, and only one side is actually mattress-y. The other side is hard.
Another litter box has been put out, and they keep the boxes really clean, so I don’t think it was a problem with them being clean. I really do think it’s territorial, b/c this cat doesn’t get along well with the other females (we have 3 females and 1 male)
Okay, how does that work, exactly? Even declawed cats usually have their back claws. They all scratch around in there to bury their poo. How do you end up with non-shredded catbox liners? I stopped using liners because I spent all my time dumping the whole thing into another bag because the liners were shredded. Do you make your cats wear slippers or something?
Heh. Bunny slippers on cats = there’s an invention! That sounds like fun for the whole family…
