Cat spraying in the house. I am so fucking sick of it it's unbelivable.

[HettyKett]

We have two cats, one male one female, both neutered as soon as they were old enough. Both have full access to outside and appear to be totally happy and healthy. Their relationship with one another seems fine. They are 5, one is a siamese and one an oriental short hair (should that be relevant).

Anyway, one or both of the bastards them is spraying in the house . I'm cleaning each place as soon as I find it and using Feliway (as advised by the vet and the breeder). It seemed to be getting better but I've just found yet another sticky, orange splatter of stink

I feel like re-homing them TBH, but I couldn't / wouldn't ever do that. I love them, the DC love them and apart from this issue they are fab. I suffer from depression and keeping on top of the housework costs most of my energy as it is, without having to spend half the day crawling round sniffing for piss places. Whatever I do down stairs just stinks and I hate it.

Anyone care to suggest anything or sympathise at all?

Anyone got an opinion on the cattery idea?

I think the cattery might work if they are spraying in the same area each time and it would give you a change to deep clean but as they are doing it in new areas they may just carry on where they left off when you get them home.

Assuming thing the vet has ruled out physical problems they could be spraying because they are insecure so remarking their territory this could be due to any changes to the household/ new neighbourhood cat/ change in their relationship with each other. You could trying spraying feliway around doors leading to the outside, any windows they look out of and make sure that they have got enough safe hidy holes.

Or they are just answering the call of nature and have decided that they can do this indoors. In which case persevere with the litter trays, make sure they are in a quiet place and you could try the special kitten litter that has an 'attractant' in it to encourage use.

The cat behaviour expert may have more ideas. I hope you get it sorted.

you NEED 3 litter trays within easy access...hide under bed, behind settee, behind door, etc I have 3 cats so have 4 trays, 2 up, 2 down. You need one per cat and one left over.

Make sure at least one tray is an enclosed walk-in one.

Lastly, try different types of litter. Worlds Best (buy online or Pets at Home) is great, so is the crystal glass type on from Tesco or B&M or Quality Save, it only needs changing every 4 weeks and does not smell of wee.

You honestly cannot say you have a sprayer or go to a behaviourist until you have taken these steps alongside continued use of a Feliway plug in which without fail is changed every 4 weeks, write it on the calendar.

You have to use a proper odour remover or diluted bio washing powder to get the smell off so that even the cats won't smell it, otherwise the'll think the place is a toilet and keep spraying.
One thing that helped us a bit was getting one of those microchip-activated cat flaps as a neighbour's cat was coming in at night and stressing ours out.
I'm afraid we saw a behaviourist with ours and tried everything but nothing really worked because the neighbour's cat is still there and there's always lots of fighting outside.
I totally sympathise with how stressful it is for you. It's really upsetting and time consuming to be constantly on the lookout for cat piss. Horrible. I'm sure the house doesn't smell as bad to visitors as it does to you though as you are more aware of it.

Oh and feliway and zylkene did nothing for our persistent sprayer, but they are worth trying. I think these highly strung cats like siamese and bengals are particularly difficult!

Thank you all! Some great tips there.

I barely dare to post this, don't want to jinx things , but, there was been no spraying last night or yesterday in the day... A welcome break at the very least.

My girl cat sprays if she is distressed & she usually does it in front of me. The vet said shes showing me something is wrong - which is true as she suffers from cystitis. I now have supplies of cystaid to treat & zylkene for stress.

Might be with taking them to the vet in cases there is something wrong ?