SWMBO's Cat Won't Stop Pi$$ing on the Carpet

We moved to our new house over a year ago. The cat marked it's territory in one of the rooms with carpet. We put a litter box in there and that seemed to help.  Then the baby came into play and he may have marked his territory again. We had the carpet cleaned a week ago and I keep getting new sniffs of ammonia like smells.  

Any suggestions on how to keep the berkeleyer from doing this again?  

Thanks!

Cat-a-pult.

While it's possible that the cat is acting out due to the reduced attention that comes with having a new baby in the house, it's entirely possible that there's a urinary tract infection that's causing this behavoir. Cats generally prefer to go in the litter box. 

A trip to the vet would be my suggestion. Good luck, and congrats on the baby.

In actuality, my folks had a great cat. Until they sold their house and moved into a condo.

It decided that it would rather whiz on the carpet , in a specific room than use it's box.

 They tried everything, spent a bunch of money on everything that was supposed to help, and none of it did a thing.

They ended up tearing out the carpet, leaving a small pc in the room, which luckily was a non-used basement room and replaced it a couple times a week until the cat passed.

I love animals, but could not have put up with that, but I don't have an entire floor of my house that goes unused like they do.

I hope you have better luck!

In reply to EastCoastMojo :

He had a UTI in the past and is on a special diet for them. My wife says he is not acting like he has one.

  I'm not 100% sure he is still doing it but I can't stop smelling it in that room. And the carpet lights up under a UV light.  

Are you on a well by any chance? I had to start giving my cats bottled water because our well water gets a pretty high mineral content whenever we get a lot of rain. We had a lot of issues with our cats and utis even on the c/d diet, but changing the water source seems to have helped.

Hardwood laminate...

had an elderly cat with health problems, we couldnt have carpet with him, luckly we had an apartment with hardwood and that prompted him to use only the litterbox.  Well, except when he had FLUTD bouts.

enzyme cleaners are your best friend.  Use them first.   other things can set the stain and odor in and once its there they will keep coming back to it. 

touch base with the vet, cats are experts at hiding things. This could be the only sign given for something serious. 

A few comments: Enzyme cleaner for sure.

In cats, the organ that is affected by stress is the bladder. In younger to middle aged cats, infections are rare, cystitis is not rare at all.  I spend most of my time and energy on these cases discussing  potential sources of stress, how to manage it, and very rarely use antibiotics (which any more should only be used after a positive culture).

For almost all of my appointments (for whatever reason), I direct my clients to veterinarypartner.com, and give out articles from the site all day long. Here's one on feline idiopathic cystitis:

https://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&S=0&C=0&A=612

Finally, get the cat seen by a vet. Best of luck. 

I feel your pain. We have four cats, and we've had this battle. If it's habitual instead of medical, you've got to break the habit.

Two things have helped a lot:

Scat Mats are a plastic sheet with embedded wires that will give the cat a low intensity shock when they step on it. Doesn't hurt them, but it'll sure make them jump. Also quite exciting for humans if you leave one on the couch. At least one of you will be laughing.

SSSCAT spray is basically a can of compressed air with a motion sensitive head. It'll hiss at the cat when the animal comes in range. They work really well, although they'll also surprise the heck out of you if SWMBO moves it without telling you. Eventually the cats will stay away from the can even if it's not turned on.

These aren't permanent solutions, they're just enough to get the cat out of the habit of using that particular spot. Put the mat or the spray in the area for a week or two and the cat just kinda forgets. That usually does the trick.

Cats are shiny happy people. Once you realized you are dealing with an shiny happy person, the answer becomes clear.

You mean rub their bellies?

Close the door?

One more thing, if this is happening in a multi-cat household you should ALWAYS have one more litter box than cats, up to five. And not in the same place.

That's always the first step.

Single cat.  9yrs old. 3 litter boxes. 2 on 1st floor, one on 2nd floor.  

No door to close.  It's the living room.

Rubbing belly?  Ha! I like my hands and fingers too much. 

I'll look into the scat mats. 

And I'll tell my wife to get him checked out. thanks for the suggestions!  Keep 'em coming!

Our cat did this when we moved to our new house in the basement, pretty sure she did it due to the previous owners doing the same thing before we got there. We drew the line though after about the 3rd time she peed in our son's crib. our solution was to make her a garage/outdoor cat.

Floating Doc said:

A few comments: Enzyme cleaner for sure.

In cats, the organ that is affected by stress is the bladder. In younger to middle aged cats, infections are rare, cystitis is not rare at all.  I spend most of my time and energy on these cases discussing  potential sources of stress, how to manage it, and very rarely use antibiotics (which any more should only be used after a positive culture).

For almost all of my appointments (for whatever reason), I direct my clients to veterinarypartner.com, and give out articles from the site all day long. Here's one on feline idiopathic cystitis:

https://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&S=0&C=0&A=612

Finally, get the cat seen by a vet. Best of luck. 

Agreed. At least that's the same info my wife (the vet) says. (I think Floating Doc said he's a vet, too)

We have a cat that's gone through this a couple different times. I've built a shelf that the kids couldn't reach and he felt safe but could still be in the same room. (He's relatively social, for a cat.) I've put cat doors, well not actual cat doors but a hole in the drywall so that he can go into the basement stairs to get to his litter boxes! In our old house I actually trimmed it with the same trim boards as the rest of the house. We've had the enzyme sprays and the stuff that goes in the little 'glade plugins' style thingies.

One day it would be “What cat?”

Ranger50 said:

One day it would be “What cat?”

Next day would be "What husband?"

Lol

PMRacing said:

Ranger50 said:

One day it would be “What cat?”

Next day would be "What husband?"

Lol

Freedom!!!!!

The troublesome kitty. 

Ranger50 said:

PMRacing said:

Ranger50 said:

One day it would be “What cat?”

Next day would be "What husband?"

Lol

Freedom!!!!!

More like "And nice new flower bed"...

You know,  a part of me would love to see the E36-Storm that would happen if some of the solutions for cat problem were proposed as solutions for dog problems on this forum...

Or, if someone proposed a KFC solution to a parrot problem...

(Sorry, I view pets as a "member of family" level commitment and dont take it lightly)

Timely post. Nothing much to  add, but it gives me the option to rant. 

We have two 14 year old carts.  Brother and sister from the same litter.  It's an off again on again issue with the male.  He prefers to go outside, but we have a constant issue with him going down to the basement and peeing/pooping on the carpet not in the litter box that's 3' away.  At night we have to lock them in the back hall (with open access to the basement) or he will wake me up (me, not my wife or daughter unless I'm not there) every couple of hours 'let me out', 'let me in', 'feed me' repeat.  How does he wake me up if he's outside?  Sit on the windowsill closest to me and scratch the frame with his nails while meowing loudly until I wake up.  How does he wake me up when he's inside?  Hit me on my face with his paw until I'm awake.  Anyway, this morning I opened up the door to the back hall (he was thumping it with his paw to signal 'let me out'  I open it he walks down the hall, turns around, looks at me and pee's on the floor/mud boots as if to say 'berkeley you motherberkeleyer, I'll teach you to lock me up for 8 hours'  Bastard.  YEs we've checked for UTI's in the past but will again.

One thing.  I find organic apple cider vinegar better than the over the counter enzyme  cleaners as a cleaner deterrent.

Even though I'm a cat (and dog) lover, I've told the family that after these cats pass there will be no more cats for several years.  Even if we change the carpet in the basement I don't want any old smells (that the cats can smell, not us) causing repeat behavior in any future animals.  

I had a cat that looked very much like that one.  It was useless as a pet, since most people couldn't get near it without blood.  I used to leave the door open, in the hope it would run away, but it was too timid for that.  When it started pissing on the furniture and on the beds, it was green dream time.  If I had had any power around the house, it would have gone 10 years sooner.