General Discussion

Hello... i wasn't sure if there is already a thread for cats. Irl cats.

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I need some support and help here:

I have two cats let's say E and H.

* E is a 5-years-old girl, she's small but has the attitude to defend herself (has been with other cats in the past). We got her summer 2014.

* H is 4-y-o boy, who got his tail amputated last spring and he is very strong guy! He has big paws. Has propably never been with other cats i think... he was found in the forest and i wanted to adopt him. H was adopted spring 2015.

Ok, so, they have lived together like 1½ years now. They fight yeah, but it was pretty bad earlier (and believe me, i did everything as planned. Can give you details if must, but the fighting is not the point.) and now it is more like playing tag.

Here's the problem:
E was only cat and E had some troubles when she was with me in other apartment - peeing on everything.
I started to remove everything she pee's on. So now in this apartment (also, every previous apartments too to be honest) i can have only two big rugs, one big couch and two armchairs. No-one can leave ANY clothes on the floor, i cannot use any fabric or plastic on my floor. I cannot take my friends here for sleepover, because the bed must be removed immidiately away from the livingroom to the master bedroom, because if i don't notice she pees on the bed too. The temporary bed must be also removed when going to store (it takes 15 minutes to store and back).

Now i tried to put a small carpet under the balcony door... it took honestly 4 days and she made her move. Usually it takes 2 weeks if talking about carpets! But here i checked it. Now i don't know what to do because all our shoes are dropping water to the floor when snow on the outside (which can cause serious water-damage to the wooden floor and cost some serious money that we cannot aford in our entire lives!)

I'm honestly helpless here...

And to the facts:
* I've been taking her to the vet 4 times because of the peeing issue
* She have been given antibiotics and other drugs to help her with the issue if there would be any pain or such but no
* Lab tests were normal after the treatment twice in a row
* I've bought some dope liquid that i spray to neutralize the odour so the cats wouldn't pee on the same spot again... it was so expencive it almost broke my finance situation lol
* I've tried different chemicals and non-chemicals to remove the odour or prevent the peeing from happening
* We have 2 kitty litter boxes
* I've tried every single brand that they have in the markets of kitty litter (the sand you know)
* I've lifted the other box top of the washing machine, so the other cat H wouldn't be able to bully her when E is on the litter box doin her thing nicely to the box
* Our boxes are clean - i take every single poop or pee right after they do them to prevent the boxes from being too dirty for them (if E would be picky you know?) and i change the whole litter sand once in a week (i also clean the litter boxes too with water and soap that doesn't smell and it is suitable for babies and animals)

... What can i do?

Thank if you help!

@Xibalba

Does E have proper spaces to hide, or be, that is out of the way and safe? She could feel like she doesn't have proper territory, and so over compensates. I know that is often a problem, though I don't know if that is true for you.

Ways to give them space: offer places for them to get up high, even if it is a kitty shelf way up high, or a cat tower, or something to that extent.

@Xibalba

This has worked for me with past issues over multiple cats.

Put another litter box near where she likes to pee. If she pees all over, get some from the Dollar Store and put them around. Right over top of the spot, wherever it is.

Generally in a multiple cat household, one feels threatened by another and will either not pee in the given box out of stress, or out of a desire to mark territory, or both. Giving the stressed cat multiple options and making it clear to them, even with the limited animal intelligence, that here is a spot you pee in, I'm putting a box here, use that, will help.

Yes, this is more work for you early on. However, the animal will generally gravitate toward one box after a span of days and you can gradually remove the other boxes. You will almost always end up with 1 more litter box than you started with. There's really no way to get around that, especially since your cats have been living together for an extended period and this is still an issue.

I know you have two boxes already, but even in that situation this has worked for me.

Let me know if you have questions. :)

This sounds like a big problem...I don't have much experience but good luck!

@Fiji
Aww. I really appreciate that you don't judge and wish me good luck (:
Some people may think that i don't keep my house clean or i don't take care of my cats. Or then some people may even say that cats are bad pets that i should get rid of them or something like that and it makes me sad. But thank you really!

@SweetPeony

Thank you for your answer!
Yeah, i once read that there should be litter boxes like...
if you have one cat then make the boxes 1 or 2,
if you have two cats make the boxes 2-3,
three cats 4 boxes,
four cats 5 boxes
...

So yeah... i've been thinking for 3 boxes now. (And 10 minutes ago she pee'ed on the livingroom carpet that she has never pee'd before!)
I'm just afraid that soon i have like 10 boxes. And i'm not sure where to put the boxes, because H can be a **** and bully her when she's on the box IF the box isn't high enough. I cannot put the boxes to the ground anymore... (H slaps E if she's on the litter box or just stalks her.) H is very protective of both of the boxes, he thinks they are his territory. It is really annoying! We use watergun (the spray you know haha) to shoo him off if he tries to sneek near the boxes if E is in them.

But the issue was already before H even came to live with her.

I'm not quite sure if it can be like you said (if i unrestood it right), so that she likes to mark every clean spot to "herself", so she just likes that everything smells like she owns the place.
I hope it's not that...

Now i will try to put some cups of vinegar to the spots she has been peeing on. It should smell so bad that she won't pee on that thing anymore. Let's see if it works.

@Xibalba

Stop using the water bottle on H.

Cats are attracted to attention like melodramatic parasites, negative or positive. So when you spray H for lurking around, he decides to do it again because he's getting attention for it.

EDIT to clip out the st00p paragraph and add better advice: if you MUST spray, set up a sensor to auto-spray. Try and see if there are any ways to keep H away such as moving the boxes, setting it up so H cannot get to it (there is a system of collars with IDs on used with food bowls in some cases but that might not exist for cat litter), etc.

@Xibalba

Please do not do what Neowulf has suggested in letting the cats fight it out themselves. This is a terrible and irresponsible idea because cats are typically all or nothing when they fight and this could lead to serious injuries in one or both of them which means more money spent in going to the vet. This is a disastrous idea and not how it should be handled.

Cats aren't stupid animals as suggested and capable of being quite wily. They're sneaky and you're likely to never catch E in the act of peeing on the floor. I fully recommend having three litter pans since you're really supposed to have one extra over the number of cats you have because this is a territorial/stress response. Try putting boxes in different locations to offer E the chance to use them without getting harassed by H. Especially put one that's in an area where she typically goes where she shouldn't. We had this same problem with one of our cats who kept pooping and peeing where she shouldn't out of stress and putting one where she normally went on the floor seemed to help solve the problem and we were able to move that pan back where the others go. She's had a couple relapses but it's not nearly what it was. Don't use bleach to clean any areas where E has gone either because apparently the smell of bleach just encourages them to keep going there. You can also try buying a diffuser that sprays a pheromone in the air to help calm and minimize the stress. They're fairly cheap if you want to give that a try.

And don't yell at E for going on the floor because she won't understand why you're yelling at her and it will just scare her. This doesn't work for any animal other than to create a fear response and add to the stress

@Xibalba

Maybe invest in one of those igloo boxes? They last forever (ours is almost 8 years old. We bleach/baking soda it once a year for smells).

@AtomicSamurai
Naa, she's not. It's illegal here and i wouldn't do it anyway. I have scissors meant for cats that i can cut the ends of the sharp claws if neccessary (so they wouldn't harm eatch other so severe) and yeah just the end, so the end becomes more dull and round.

@SweetPeony
That looks cool, but i'm afraid that H would sneak to the stairs to slap E :/

Aand i'll respond to the other two later! (I hope i won't forgot haha.)