Cats can be right bastards. I go through phases where I swear I’ll never have another and right now I have three. Apparently they’re cute or something.
One product line that really helps with the smell eradication in my experience is the Nature’s Miracle line. If you use that to douse the areas where he’s been spraying, it should help with lingering odor.
I also agree with complete separation suggestions.
A litterbox that they have to jump out of, or placing the litterbox within a higher walled box that they step into and then jump out of can help stop the tracking issue. It will also keep scattering to a minimum (stops the spraying of litter while they are burying their business).
I use a long wet weather mat under the litter box area that the cats have to step on. It’s rough enough to catch lingering litter from their paws, without being too unpleasant for them to step on.
Who would feed them if we died?
I mean, if I happened to conveniently die in the house with them and wasn’t discovered, that’s a week or so of good eating, but after that?..
Small Hen, having McCoy go outside might not be that bad an idea, depending on your surroundings. All four of our cats are outside cats (that’s fairly normal here in the UK) and they all do fine. Our three youngest tend to go outside all day, leaving the oldest one inside by himself. I think he really appreciates the peace and quiet. Things tend to get a bit tense if it’s raining and they’re all stuck indoors all day.
Cats are not children and vice versa. Once we set aside manufactured drama based on a false equivalency, we can come up with workable solutions, perhaps including euthanasia.
I sympathize. We have 4 cats, and one pees. One is a dick, like how a human is and not how cats are typically mean. One is a cloudcuckoolander. One is very high-stress, constantly under alert from bullying from dick cat (who only targets her) and the dog. And the last is the chillest cat I have ever met, a gentle giant who gets along with everyone and gets tons of attention. No stress whatsoever. You can guess that the last one is the one that pees on everything. My main solution is to make sure clothes, backpacks, etc. are off the floor, and hang the bath mat when not in use. No UTI, but I can’t figure out how to solve it otherwise. Advice like “Give your cat plenty of positive attention. Despite the stereotypes that surround felines, cats do bond with their humans. They want our attention and will go to great lengths to get it from us” is kind of patronizing to me.
I’m sorry, but owning- and dealing with- a litter box is part of living with a cat. Sweep/vacuum the floors daily if tracking litter is that big a problem for you. Isn’t spending 3 minutes a day dealing with litter a better option than spending 2 hours doing laundry because the cat peed on your bed? He’s telling you that he has no other place to do his business, and you’re telling him that you’re fine with it by not providing an alternative.
Decide which cat you like better, and get rid of the other one. Give it to someone that wants a cat, take it to the pound, whatever. It’s completely unfair to both the cats and to you to attempt to force two cats to cohabitate that can’t get along.
Seriously. The logic just doesn’t compute for me. “I don’t want litter boxes upstairs, so I’ll put them in a place where one cat won’t use it and then spend hours cleaning all my stuff he pissed on, but at least I don’t have a litter box upstairs!” Well, your entire upstairs has now turned into a litter box anyway. Get a big dropcloth to put the litter box on and a Dustbuster and try it out.
Or keep one cat in the spare bedroom. Put the box and food in there and see what happens with the peeing. If you feel guilty for cooping one of them up, you can switch them out every few days. This is what we did when I lived with my parents and I had a cat that didn’t get along with one of their two. We didn’t want to get rid of any of them but leaving them together was going to end in a vet visit due to fighting, so we did a balancing act.
Sorry, do you do your laundry with a tub and washboard? Washing a blanket takes about five minutes of time total. It’s not like I have to stand by the machine while it does its thing.
The location of the litter box is absolutely not negotiable. I lived in a 550 square foot apartment with these cats once, and keeping up with the mess was a full time job. The frustration I feel when Todd pees on my comforter is NOTHING compared with the frustration I felt when I would sweep the whole floor, and then 30 minutes later, I heard them digging around, and I knew I had to break out the broom all over again. And I didn’t have carpet at the time. If I have to haul the vacuum up and down the stairs all day, something’s gonna die. I’m not sure which of us it will be, but it’s gonna happen.
I don’t have a spare bedroom. I live in a 3 bedroom house. There are three of us. None of us are willing to host a litter box. If that makes me a horrible pet owner, well, anyone want a cat?
Buy a self cleaning cat litter box, put it in one of the bedrooms on a carpet sample so it collects loose litter. Much easier to clean a bit of litter than pee. Lock cat in room at night so it isn’t harassed by other cat. Make bully cat understand your displeasure with a spray bottle or the tennis shoe of Damocles.
What kind of litter boxes do you have? If they are the small pans, about 3" high, get rid of them and get something bigger. Covered ones with doors are ideal, but my aforementioned cat won’t use them as he is large. I got a large Sterilite to use. Sometimes they make a mess, but it isn’t so bad that the floor requires daily cleaning.
ETA: I must be the only person who really doesn’t mind cleaning the litter box. I don’t like cleaning the floor (which seems to be the OP’s main complaint), but lots of other people hate just scooping it. I scoop whenever I see it has been used, a few times a day. You should too if you aren’t already, because the cat could object to the dirty box, although it sounds like it’s more psychological than that, but can’t hurt to try. If the third person in the home is your kid, make him/her do it!
My cat just peed on me and the bed. But I understand. She was walking wobbly this morning, now she cannot even stand up. She may or may not be here tomorrow (probably not). It has been a good 17 years.
Sorry about pissing on your thread, I will try to clean it up later.
I have two boxes - one’s a high walled (about 5 inches), the other one’s the low walled kind. I clean the box once a day on my work days, twice a day on my days off. Sometimes I do make my nephew do it, but he’s taking a summer STEM program right now, and it’s a bit intense, so I try to ease off on him when it comes to chores.
Todd has been fine using the boxes in the garage for the past year, and fine sharing with Mccoy for the last two. It’s only in the past two months that things have been difficult. Two reasons that might be - I’ve started taking on extra shifts at my job (and I’m gone 14 hours of the day on workdays) which I began not long before this started, and there’s been a lot of emotional turmoil amongst us human household members - arguments, the death of my grandmother, with whom I was close, my nephew starting the aforementioned STEM program. I don’t know how perceptive cats are to people stress (dogs certainly are), but I guess he might be reacting to that.
I decided to treat McCoy with Advantage and let him out in the evenings (I put cold water out, but no food, so he should come back at night). That might give Todd a break, and let McCoy run off steam. I’m piloting this plan tonight. Wish me luck!
