I have some experience with this problem. My cat would pee on clothes and other soft things. He was fixed before we got him as a kitten so it wasn’t that. He didn’t have any infections that would explain his peeing. He just had to pee there.
It took us a while to figure out the pattern. I would fold the clothes in front of the sliding glass door, or I would stage the dirty clothes there when it was time to do laundry. And that’s when he’d pee on them. It turned out that there was a particularly mean squirrel that like to taunt our poor boy and he would peed to mark his territory. After his sister passed, he became very insecure with this place in the hierarchy.
I won’t say we were perfect in fixing this issue but we did find some things that worked. First and foremost was more litterboxes. He has only two now, but he had three at one time. We also put them where he wanted to mark and moved them slowly to where they were convenient. And, not that we planned this, we got a new, tall bookcase that effectively acts as a perch up high where he feels most secure and content, which helps his anxiety a ton. He almost never pees outside his litter box now. He’s only incidents are when he is upset with the cleanliness of his boxes.
I had a cat who was a perfect gentleman for the first 11 years of his life, and then we moved. After we moved, he peed in every room of the new house and we thought, “Okay, he’s getting his scent in the new place.” Like maybe there had been another cat there. But then he kept on doing it. Unacceptable.
So he became a mostly outdoor cat. He was allowed in the house if someone was with him at all times, i.e., he could sleep in my son’s (his official person’s) room, if the door was closed, and if my son cleaned up anything that needed to be cleaned up. But when in there he was mostly in my son’s bed and as far as I know he did not pee there.
When inclement weather led to reasons why we didn’t want to leave him outside, we had a utility room in the basement, and we put in a box and water and locked him in there, but never for very long. Overnight, at most. If he messed up, the floor was concrete and there was a drain right there.
This worked for years, and then he got to be kind of old and we realized it actually had been a long time since he’d had an accident, so he once again became a mostly indoor cat. Specifically, it took four years. (It could have been sooner, but at this point the official person went off to college so we had to recalculate.)
ETA: We did have him checked out by a vet, and he was perfectly fine. I think the vet recommended the isolation area. But that vet was also cool with an outdoor cat. As he was a stray kitten when we got him, this suited him just fine.
It’s more that I didn’t have any obvious solution to the problem, so at least I was getting my money’s worth in carpet damage. I will admit that it seemed like $450 or $700 or whatever it’s been was overcharging me though in retrospect it seems like a reasonable fee, given what the cats actually do. (something like 35 a month in “pet rent” AND a $400 fee at the start plus the usual deposit)
Edit : apparently I have paid $820 for the privilege of having 2 cats. The carpet they have destroyed is about 200 square feet, so at $2 a square foot for replacement carpet, it seems like I’ve more than paid for the damage.
Skimmed the thread and I’ve been drinking so forgive me if this was addressed. What are you feeding this cat? Some lower end cat foods have some kind of additive (ash?) that can lead to urinary problems. Then it hurts the cat when it pees and the cat associates the pain with the litter box and starts checking to see if peeing someplace else hurts less. Try a food upgrade. I always fed my cats Iams at a minimum and had pretty good results. They peed in the box and the stools are smaller and less frequent because more of the food is digestible= less output.
Can the cat be transitioned outside? You can still leave food & water out on the back steps. Pet the cat and give it attention. Even let it inside on very cold nights.
Cats may wander the neighborhood but they will return to their food bowl. They’re smarter than dogs that run off and get lost.
My neighbors cat did that for many years. He moved here from a different area of the city. Brought the cat with him.
I saw it in the neighbors yard early every morning waiting to be fed. It always hung around close to that house.