What to do with a neurotic puss?

[ginpig]

So, I am starting to run out of ideas of how to help my massively neurotic puss cat. We adopted her and her brother at 17wks old after out last cat died very unexpectedly. DD was about 20wks old at the time.

Cats settled in well and we were all getting along famously. We had a few issues of the neighbourhood cats coming in the house and peeing in the living room, but this stopped once I got the microchip catflap fixed.

We now have a DS (9 months) and for the last 5 months or so, our girl cat has been peeing furiously all over the house. There isn't a room left where she hasn't peed. We have tried;

• not using any cleaning products on floors etc., certainly no bleach/ spray to clean up puddles of pee
• providing litter trays in various places, of various sizes, with various litter materials to no avail (she will just pee up against the tray or in a completely different place)
• restricting her access to certain rooms
• feliway (did bugger all)
• cystaid (from vet)
• Zylkene (from vet)

A couple of weeks ago she obviously had a UTI which we got sorted. This has now returned to day, so we have another trip to the vet later on.

The trouble is, she is mad as a box of frogs and I fear that most of her peeing is behavioural, but have run out of ideas to try and help her. And I do want to help her- everyone else is telling me to re-home her, which I am loathe to do as it's not her fault?

Does anyone else have any bright ideas?

Is seeing a cat behaviourist an option? Get to the root of why she's peeing everywhere?

Put up some deep shelves covered in carpet, so she has somewhere high to escape from the children.

Clean the pee puddles with a solution of water and biological washing powder. The enzymes break the smell down, making it less likely that puss pisses there again.

I second the suggestion of making sure she has somewhere where she feels she can escape to. And for cleaning white vinegar is good. It neutralises the smell and discourages them from pissing there again.

I think it's pet behaviourist time really. I don't think re-homing would work, no one wants a cat who wees like that.

Is she a house cat?.

I third the behaviorist idea.

Just a thaught: could she feel stressed 'cause of the baby? Do you spend time with her/play with her? Are there changes in her life since the baby arrived?

hope everything settles down
for you it's not easy dealing with all that

I'd say a behaviourist but I'd also seriously think about options here. You've got a baby - crawling I assume? Don't let a cat use your house as a giant toilet. Cat piss smells revolting and it's really unhygienic. Sometimes you really do have to cut your losses when you've exhausted all possibilities

Thanks for the suggestions- we are already considering exactly where to put an 'escape shelf' for her, but as nothing has worked so far we're not that hopeful. She already uses the windowsill behind the closed curtains to escape to and she still wees all over the place when the kids aren't here.

I'll look into a behaviourist- won't be popular with DH, but sod him! I've been trying to pin point some change at home that might have set this off, would have.been when the baby was about 4/5 months and actually coming out of his screaming/ colicky phase. He's desperately close to crawling and I really don't want to spend the time I actually have with my kids keeping them out of cat wee.

The cat is very attached to me- seeks me out every evening and has to sit on my lap- won't go to DH or anyone else, so I don't know if that's got something to do with it.

Will see what the vet says this evening- my other concern is that the blood in her urine is not because of a UTI and might be a symptom of something more sinister