Could the snow have made my cat spray indoors?

[HeyMacWey]

Woke up this morning to the distinctive smell of cat spray in our sitting room.

Last night we decided to let girl cat sleep in there as the stove was on and it was going to be cold. Normally both cats stay in the kitchen and dining room overnight with access to the cat flap. Boy cat slept in his usual place.

We do occasionally have other cats trying to come in but the girl cat is very vocal about not letting other cats come in - if it had been an intruder cat we definitely would have heard her.

Could the snow have freaked her out and made her spray?

Where's the litter tray or does she go outside? We keep our litter tray outside in a shed and when it's bitterly cold our young girl hates going outside and has emptied her bowel & bladder on a beanbag (goodbye, beanbag)... we force her out the door now!

Why would you not bring the litter tray inside when it is bitterly cold? Seems mean to be forcing a cat outside in bad weather.

Litter tray is in the house and she had access to it.

I've never seen her spray outside, but I have seen the boy cat spray in the garden. I'm wondering if it could have been him? He's a bit more sensitive to change (got a urine infection when we had some building work done). He was really smelling round the doors this morning, but would he be smelling his own scent?

Our cat went to the toilet on my daughters bedroom carpet yesterday . He looked quite stressed out poor thing but decided that he wasn't going to use his litter tray and he couldn't scratch outside because of the snow . He's currently hiding under the bed and I'm hoping that we don't have a repeat of yesterday's behaviour so yes I definitely think it could be weather related

Maybe it was your boy cat. Our girl kept sniffing at the beanbag she'd destroyed. Almost like a "why does that smell of my poo"!!

I keep the litter tray outside because we have two very young children. The cats are fine going outside for 5 minutes in their massive fur coats.

Oh no - poor you (and him).

Boy cat is fast asleep, whilst girl cat can't settle and is wistfully looking out the window wishing it'd all go away and wondering why the house stinks.

I've searched on my hands and knees and can't seem to locate where they've sprayed so now have the windows open whilst there's 7 inches of snow outside. Have washed down all the knee high hard surfaces.

My old cat used to stand on the arm of the sofa and spray up the curtains, so it may not be at low level. I had to buy a UV torch to find all the spots where she had been. Cat pee glows in the dark under UV light. I realise that is probably not wildly helpful if you are snowed in! It is more likely to have been the boy than the girl, my girl only sprayed when she was getting pretty senile and we introduced new kittens (foolishly, from her point of view).
We always had a litter tray and my cats pre-dated my babies, the litter tray was in the kitchen behind a gate when the children were too small to be unattended around it, not possible in every house I suppose.

Good idea on the uv torch. Before when an intruder cat sprayed you could see where he'd been. Will send Dh out to hunt for one on his lunch break.

Girl cat finally settled.