I've been burying my head in the litter tray

[catpoooffender]

Hi all,

Extremely embarrassed about this and anticipating some judgement, but I am requesting advice.

We have two 11-year old cats. They've always had a litter tray. However, when I was a child, we only had a litter tray for kittens, until they were old enough to go outside and do their business. Because of that, and because of the advice we were given, we tried to work towards getting the cats to only toilet outside. However we were never 'brave enough' to remove the litter tray entirely, mainly because we couldn't have a cat flap, and also one of our cats is prone to diarrhoea.

In more recent years they have started toiletting outside more. Originally they just seemed to poo in our flowerbeds, so we just picked them up as and when. However, they now just do it on the lawn. And over time, we've got into this spiral wherein we are less and less inclined to use the garden (especially since we had our DS, who we didn't want to expose to cat poo), and as a result, because we don't see it as much or think of the garden when we're cleaning/tidying, the cat poo tends to accumulate in large amounts. We only really clean it up when we have to - eg we recently sold our house, so would clean it up before viewings. I have no excuse for this, all I can say is it's a combination of 'out of sight, out of mind', and also it's not the nicest task to do. I also have OCD, which makes it that much less appealing to have to deal with. I've just been out to have a tidy as we're having someone round today, and there was just so much of it 🤢😳

We're moving house soon, and I really want to start afresh. We will of course have a big clean up before leaving this house, so the buyers don't have to. In our new house we will have the option of a cat flap, plus a utility area, which we don't have now. But the big issue I guess is that the cats are now used to just pooing on lawns, so presumably will just carry on. They don't ever seem to wander at all far from our house, so I don't think they're soiling other peoples lawns, but obviously I don't want them to do that either.

What should I do? Do I have to accept that they will poo on our lawn and that if I want my son to be able to play out there (and if I don't want to continue being a skanky sod) I have to clean it up every day? Even then, when they're soft poos, you can't properly clean it, so even if there were no big lumps there would still be soft poo smeared in the grass.

Is there another solution I'm not considering?

Thanks. Hard hat donned.

I don't think you need a hard had, this is The Litter Tray, not AIBU

I have 2 cats who like to toilet in the garden (tiny courtyard). I scoop it every day like I would a litter box, even the flowerbed they use (otherwise it overflows with cat shit ). If they crap on your lawn or patio just pour some dish water over the spot once you've cleared it.

I find that leaving a dedicated patch of freshly dug over, unplanted flower bed in a quiet corner encourages the kitties to use their own garden.

Thank you @SpamChaudFroid. The hard hat was not a reflection of the nature of the subforum but rather the nature of the shame!

Perhaps we could create a corner of soil for them. At the moment it's just a large squarish lawn, so would be easily done. Thank you!

You’ll need three decent sized trays for two cats and a litter that’s small grained like ultra clumping off you have an animal feed store near by chick crumb which is ground maize.

I wouldn’t want to go outside in this weather to wee.

@Fluffycloudland77 where would you put three litter trays?

I’d do one hallway, one utility, one landing.

If you can get hold of chick crumb it’s flushable.

Thanks @Fluffycloudland77. Do you have small children? Just wondering how you/others deal with this with toddlers running around. At the moment the litter tray we do have is in a downstairs loo that DS isn't allowed to go in. But it could start to get logistically very tricky if we had multiple trays around the joint...

No we couldn’t have them.

I have one (very) large litter tray for four cats - they all use it and don't complain. I really couldn't be doing with multiple trays.
Irritatingly ours regularly come in from outside to have a shit and then go straight back out again...

I'm sorry @Fluffycloudland77.

Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions.

@Fluffycloudland77

You say chick crumb is flushable.

Sure I’ve read here that you mustn’t flush cat/dog poo into the sewer system because sewage farms don’t treat some of the bacteria that they can have in their poo?

Yes, that’s probably true....my deceased Bengal went off chick crumb anyway after I went mad and bought two bags not one.

We have a covered litter tray jammed under a side table, leaving only enough room between tray and wall for the cat to get in and not our poo-eating hound [bleurgh] to stick her head in. Might some arrangement like that defeat your toddler?

I do whack my head with embarrassing regularity when emptying the tray.

I’d try the patch of earth in the garden first. Maybe put a few poops I. There to encourage them.

If you see them about to poop on the lawn, try to shoo them. Pick them up and put them on their earth patch and hold their paws and scratch/dig them.

If you have a watering can of water with a drop of fairy liquid in it you can flush any areas on the grass.

Also keep your grass cut short. Just some suggestions.

Probably a silly question but are you use it's actually just your cats using your garden? When I first moved here, I had a senior cat who had always been an indoor cat so she only had supervised outings. Other cats from the neighbourhood and foxes used my garden as their toilet though!

For 11 year old cats I think it's a good idea to introduce (more) litter trays anyway as they'll be less inclined to go out in bad weather when they get older + it's extremely helpful for you as owner their slave to monitor their litter tray habits as it can often be the first indication of health problems common in senior cats.

No, in fact DH believes that other cats are using our garden as a toilet too. Not sure why they all think it's a free-for-all, but we are where we are. I was wondering whether there's maybe some non-toxic substance that might deter them from pooing on the lawn...?