My mom wants to get rid of the cats

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We recently had a problem with the cats peeing in the apartment. I thought the problem was solved (after the pouring of much cleaner and the spraying of much Feliway)

Mom claims otherwise- she says she smells cat pee when I can’t smell it (I really don’t think her nose is more sensitive than mine, though it might be.) I suppose I might just be more acclimated to it than she is, I’m in the apartment more, but you’d think I’d smell it when I first get home from school, and I don’t, I just don’t smell it.

She also says she has found fresh pee in areas where I have sprayed. I call bullshit. I check these areas almost daily, and even give them a good spraying periodicaly (occasionally I do get a whiff of old urine- it got soaked in pretty deep) But I haven’t found any wet spots. Mom says she just found one, but it was in an area where I had just spot-sprayed pretty heavily, so I think the wet spot was where I had just sprayed the day before that hadn’t dried yet (the container recommends not blotting it up if there is an ongoing pee problem, and I just leave it wet as a precaution.)

I can’t stand the thought of giving up the cats. I love them. I have no real friends, so my cats are just about my only source of emotional support. I truly think I’d be lost without them. I’m crying as I’m typing this.

The thought of no Conan pestering me for kitty supper, or sleeping on my feet, no Schrodinger meowing at me from the kitchen table for attention, or rolling over on his back for a tummy rub, no fuzzy little faces to greet me from the balcony when I come home.

I have no job and no income right now, so moving out and taking the cats is not an option.

My heart is breaking.

I can’t do it.

I need my cats.

2

Isn’t there any compromise you can make with your mother until you can get your own place? Like her keeping all the stuff she doesn’t want peed on closed (closets, laundry baskets, bedrooms, etc.), and you doing what you’ve been doing - cleaning the pee, spraying, etc. There’s gotta be a way.

Also, have you had the boys checked for medical problems? I think urinary tract infections or other problems in cats can cause this.

3

Are they peeing or spraying?

Are your cats fixed? If not that could be part of the problem.

or

How many cats do you have? Maybe they are competing for territory. (see fixed question)

Maybe you could talk to your vet* to see if there is not some physical reason they are peeing all over the floor instead of their box.

Also a good resource for cat info (another messageboard) is catfancy.com You can post all sorts of kitty questions there and get relativly good help.

*if you need a vet recommendation I can help you out, my (the one my cats go to, not mine as in I own it) vet clinic is great :slight_smile:

4

crap… for some reason I thought you lived here in las vegas… sorry :o … my head was somewhere else… how embarrasing

5

LVgeogeek, as a matter of fact, I do live in Vegas…

Anyhoo, all indications point to a territorial pissing contest, but not between the resident felines (we’ve had both since they were kittens, both are neutered males).

Definitely pee, not spray, however…

Our apartment complex hosts a population of cats whose owners moved away and didn’t see fit to take the cats along. Mom and I have been putting food out on the front porch for the strays. We got fond of a couple of them and would let the into the apartment. That’s when the peeing problem started. I was the first to tumble to the idea that our cats were marking their territory, and told mom we needed to stop letting the other cats in. We did, for a while. Peeing problem stopped. Mom got the idea that it was safe to let other cats in, over my objections (I would sometimes come home from school to find a cat not of ours in the apartment.) Then one day, one of the cats, an unneutered male, sprayed in the apartment. So, guess who started peeing inside again? Yep. Other cats were banished for a time, Pool Kitty permanently so, but there was one orange tabby that my mom was particularly fond of that, after a time, Mom started letting in again. Meantime, Pool Kitty started spraying on the porch, and the stench got inside, inspiring a new round of indoor marking (the doors in our complex aren’t really weathertight). Mom eventually took Pool Kitty to the shelter when it became apparent that he had worms- he ate like a pig and was losing weight. Then Orange Kitty started spraying on the porch. We got rid of the smell from the porch, and our boys stopped peeing inside again, until Orange Kitty sprayed in the apartment…

We cleaned up the spray, the indoor peeing stopped until Orange Kitty sprayed inside again, and then a third time. Meanwhile, Orange Kitty also began losing weight, so Mom decided to take him to the shelter, too. We really don’t have the money to be taking strays to the vet, so this was the best solution. I basically spent a weekend hunting down and nuking cat spray with this wonderful, and cheap product called PetZyme (which I use as a household cleaner- does anything you would use Simple Green or Orange Clean for, but is much less expensive).

Anyhoo, Mom gave me a ride to school this morning, and it was when she got home that she found the alleged fresh pee. I came home to a note on the fridge announcing the “find” and the threat to get rid of the cats. I did some investigating, and she pretty well saturated the areas with PetZyme and placed newspaper over the top to keep it from evaporating before it could really soak into the carpet and padding and do its work. I’ve found no evidence of any further messes. If one or both of the cats did, in fact, pee in the apartment, it was the first time in nearly two weeks (since Orange Kitty was taken to the shelter).

I think the cats are innocent. I have been checking daily for fresh puddles and have found none, and we do occasionally get a whiff of old pee. I think that’s probably what she was smelling.

6

I have had very good luck with a product called “Nature’s Miracle”, they have a product called Just for cats that you should be able to get at any pet store.

7

OK, Mom just got home and we’ve been talking.

Right now, the litter box the cats share is on the balcony. There are two particular spots in the living room where they pee. Actually, we suspect that one cat usees each corner- we have caught Schrodnger pooping in one particular corner when it rains- heaven forbid he should get his precious little paws wet. Mom thinks they do it daily, but the enzyme cleaner I’m using kills the odor up to a point. We are now thinking that if we got a couple of litter pans and put them in those spots (they’re in corners behind end tables, so they wouldn’t be visible to potential visitors), the cats could “mark their territory” to their hearts content, and Mom and I could scoop out the boxes whenever we noticed they had been used to keep control of the odor in the apartment. There would still be enough odor that the cats would feel secure in the fact that their territory was duly marked, and we will have eliminated the part of the problem that makes it a problem.

8

As Aitara also mentioned Natures Miracle, I know it is supposed to excellent at getting out old smells from carpet to prevent repeat “offences”. It is a bit more expensive than most products for odor removal, but a lot of cat owners I know swear by the stuff.

[hijack]
Hey TL, what part of town do you live in, if you dont mind me asking? I live in Henderson in the “green valley” area. Maybe there should be a Nevada Dopefest :)[/hijack]

Anyway, don’t get rid of the kitties just yet. It seems that your moms’ soft heart for letting in the strays is the major root of the problemo. Maybe look into having the carpet in your apartment professionally cleaned (depending on how long you have lived there, the apartment will have it done if you ask) then “clean” the problem areas with the Natures Miracle stuff.

9

My understanding is that a cat will continue to mark an area it has marked previously as long as it can still smell the odor. And I’m guessing the odor has possibly gone through the carpet, into the padding, and possibly onto the floor beneath. That could be part of the problem.

A lame cat care book I own suggests solitary confinement – put one or both cats in one room only for a week, which will reduce their space and hopefully reduce their desire to mark their territory.

Also I would agree with LVgeogeek about getting them checked by the vet, just to make sure they’re physically fine. Maybe they picked up something from one of the strays, especially since you knew one of the strays had worms. I also second catfancy.com as a very helpful resource for complicated cat problems.

10

If the cats are having territory issues, they might be objecting to having to share a litter box. A second box in a different part of the house might help the problem somewhat.

11

This advice comes a bit late, obviously, but we’ve chosen to stick with females only in the house. We never have an incident. Ever. Our last boy died over three years ago and the stray boy lives outside. I hate to say it, but it seems to be true. Girls are better house cats than boys. Much of the time.

12

That does seem to be the case, kalhoun. Our two girls have never had an accident either, but the one boy cat I had was peeing and pooping everywhere. I would like to say that their litter boxes are always pristine, but even when they get a bit…let’s call it well-used, the girls still don’t go anywhere else. Yes, I know, we are very lucky, and we should clean the boxes every day.