Tom cat sneaking in and spraying over my furniture!

[luciemule]

Hi - need some ideas about how to deal with this cat. It's coming in our cat flap if we leave it open and spraying all over everywhere. We have an open plan, kitchen/lounge/diner so as soon as it's in, it can quickly get into lounge (usual place for it to spray). So at night, we're now shutting our 2 lovely and polite (and neutered)cats inside (even though they hate it and had been completely litter trained until this cat started coming). Now he's coming i nthe flap in the day too. I forgot to shut it this morning whilst we popped to the pool and when we got back late morning, we all smelt it straight away. Finally found a load of it sprayed onto front of gas fire so have scrubbed it all off. Even now though, I reckon there's more I haven't found as it still smells like gone off sweat!
Any ideas - other than DH's idea of trapping it in a cat carrier and taking it a long away before letting it go! We don't know who it belongs to.

ooh - this is what happened to us not long ago. a local tom sprayed all over our brand new kitchen and everymorning we got a waft of that. it was really upsetting so I can totally empathise with you.
we had to get a special torch (like on CSI programmes!) that shows up the urine then you can totally eliminate it with 'urine off' spray to stop them repeating same place.
my 2 boy cats are neutered but the stress of this tom led them to start spraying too in the main part of the house
I think if no-one claims the cat you could be justified in taking it to the cat protection league or a rehoming centre? it couild be that he has no home which is why he is a)not neutered and b)coming into yours.
with us (and this will sound horrible) but we had to keep a spray gun (water pistol thing) and squirted him when he came inour house but if we hadn't done that hubby had similar ideas to your dh's about a box and long journey...

Thank you Ouch - that's really useful. I'll google the CSI gun thing as I'm stalking round every day looking for it! So far, I don't think our cats are spraying as when we kept them in for a whole two days last week to check, there was nothing.
Not sure the water pistol will work as we rarely see it, other than when it's sat outside trying to come in and as soon we unlcok back door, it's off in a flash. Last week, DH went into kitchen and it was sat just inside on mat but shot out too quickly for him to catch it. It's a huge cat too with piercing green eyes so I'm not sure it looks very friendly!

Have you seen it doing it? Could be your DH

Our cats are almost one and have never done it before or since they were neutered PP and no it's not DH - he's more angry than me - he did mention the river at one point.......but then said he was joking really!

Microchip cat flap. Allows in only the cats it has been taught to recognise.
Naughty me did laugh the first time evil cat tried to enter at a reasonable speed and the flap didn't open.
My cats now sit looking out at the evil cat and I can see their tongues sticking out saying 'Nanah you can't get me'.

Hi Lizcat - what make do you have and do you mean magnetic or microchip? Had thought about that but just think when my cat comes in, other cat might sneak in behind it?

Actually, thinking about it, that might be the only solution and then it means our cats can just go in and out as they wish.

OMG!! Have just checked out microchipcatflaps.co.uk and they cost £127!!! I was thinking £40/50 would be pricey but worth it but surely people would laugh if I said our cat flap cost that much. Will tell DH tonight - think he'll still go for the other option (car & long journey!). Heehee. Will let you know how I get on with convincing him about cat flap!

we used to have a magnetic flap, worked well until cat kept losing the heavy magnetic ball on her collar and ended up outdoors an ddrenched! if there is a different type would be better than the heavy cannonball (!) type.and probably cheaper than £127!
we considered it with this tom (who also had piercing green eyes and was huge ironically!) but he was bullying our cats so badly we were worried they'd not be able to get into the flap quick enough to safety.

Our cats actually quite like him - the female went up to him last week and licked his nose! Think he may have 'attacked' her a couple of months ago though as she came in looking most unhappy and her back end was all messy and ruffled! They hate it being in the house though and ironically, it was our boy cat who was sniffing the last lot of spray on the kitchen door that meant I was able to find it and clean it off!

We have one of the newer Staywell cat flaps - think it cost £20 - £25. The magnets are much better these days - not as cumbersome as they used to be. Have had no problems with other cats following ours in, so might be worth a try. Lots of different cat flaps to choose from here

We had one of those magnetic cat flaps, the stray used to look through and our cat would come and have a look to see what was going on, thus getting close enough to the flap to trigger the magnet and let the stray through anyway.

I got totally paranoid about a ginger tom who used to spray my stuff... I HATED THAT CAT, to the point of lurking by the cat flap in the dark at 3 in the morning so I could catch the little bstrd. I threw it in a bath of cold water, it couldn't get out so had to paddle about for a bit...didn't stop it spraying but it made me feel better for a while.

By the way I love cats, we have three

LOL Nelliesmum - yesterday afternoon, I lurked by backdoor with big jug of water and saw it sitting on the wall by backdoor. I lurched out of backdoor and managed to half drench it but think it mostly got away! Told dh and he's all for spending £127 on the microchip flap! Blimey - he must be mad.

We used to have a similar problem - a nasty unneutered tom would come in, steal my cat's food and either spray, or if she was around, rape her.

We had a supersoaker water thingy at the ready, but Bad Cat knew we hated him and would be a furry blur by the time we'd aimed. Lots of threats to him (hiss at the bad cat with teeth showing, if you see it) and lots of anti-cat spray (while trying to keep our own cat away from it) worked, and we also kept her locked inside with the cat flap closed for about a week (argh) which I think broke the cycle.

That's good to know reshape. Have tried to keep flap locked for a week but didn't make any difference. DD reckons she saw in someone's window up the road and I'm wondering whether to go and see them and ask if it could be their cat - don't know what they'll though - maybe get it neutered?