Is it time to rehome?

[bravelittletiger]

I am at my wits end. We have got four cats, all rescue. Two pairs. One pair is bonded and the other pair used to be bonded but no longer are. The non-bonded pair are fairly timid (particularly one) but are also friendly and loving and we had them before the second set arrived.

We moved house about 18 months ago and had a second baby about a year ago. We also have an older toddler.

The two non-bonded cats are weeing in the house. It has been a problem on and off since we moved and I've been trying absolutely everything I can think of but I'm now at my wits end. We currently have one area of carpet we have had to barricade off so that they can't get to it because they suddenly decided to wee there and it became saturated. I've now just noticed another pool of wee downstairs by the front door. Last week I noticed they had weed on the front door rug. We had to replace the carpet in the living room because they started using that to wee and even when we replaced it they have weed there a couple of times too so they now can't go in there unless we are in there. We also had to replace our dining room flooring for the same reason. We simply can't afford to replace all the flooring in the house after they ruin it and even replacing it doesn't seem to stop them as they have started again in the same place.

At first I thought the issue was because of the move- they had their litter box in our dining room so clearly learnt to pee in there. Then I thought it was because there was no adequate toilet facilities for them outside so we've built an outdoor litter tray and put up a fence to allow them an area to poo and wee and we clean it out regularly. One poster on here suggested it might be because we didn't have enough litter trays so we ended up with four litter trays at one point but they would just toilet outside of the trays and it became so stressful trying to manage the mess and smell as well as the four trays. We now don't have any litter trays and expect them to go outside. We can't put litter trays in every room (as has been suggested) because we have young children and I also don't want litter trays in every room. I've tried Feliway but that didn't seem to make a difference and in any event we couldn't afford to pay for it in every room in our house all the time.

I feel so upset and anxious about it. Im scared of rehoming them and regretting it because I love them and rescued them myself and I believe you make a commitment to animals when you rehome or buy them. However I don't want a house that has been ruined by cat urine and im now also worried that they are just unhappy because it has been going on for so long. It must be stress related. Obviously I can't get rid of the children! Help!!

Very stressful all round

What are you cleaning the carpet with? Some strong smells will encourage the cats to try and overpower the smell . So a neutral detergent rinsed well is best ( I cannot remember of bio or non bio washing powder solution is best . Maybe the bio because you need the enzymes ? )

A check up at the vets might be in order to make sure no UTI

Are he cats being bullied away from the litter tray so the peeing is compounded by fear ?
Add in the change of scenery

Is there a chance that an outsider cat has gone in and sprayed so scared them?

We tried Feliway but I don't think it made any difference
Our female cat kept peeing on the mat surrounding the tray , we tried a honeycomb mat , it got poohed on. Tried puppy pads , they got peed on ( proper full bladder not just a drible )
We went cold turkey and moved the mats . They have a huge flat tray (its actuallly an underbed storage tray without wheels ) and a large hooded tray .

Thankfully the carpet only gets subject to a kicking of litter
But I wracked my brains as to what was going on (not what the cats were doing wrong ) as they are genrally very clean.
Ours don;t toilet outside , they sprint in to use the trays then go straight out again.

Any minor change ruffles our boy for ages . But he wasn't the one missing the tray ! It was our very confident girl
(Vet check was clear )

It can be a sign of stress, my girl cat went through a phase of stress weeing.
The thing that really helped her was buying Royal Canin Calm biscuits. The vet had given us a powder to sprinkle on her food but she was having none of it, these biscuits do the same job and luckily she loves them. I never would have believed they would have made such a difference but they really did.
In terms of cleaning you can get a special spray that breaks down the enzymes so they are less likely to go in the same spot.

https://www.royalcanin.com/uk/shop/calm-3955

https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/simple-solution-stain-and-odour-remover-750ml?utmsource=google&utmmmedium=cpc&utmcampaign=googleeshopping&cmmmc=GoogleeCPCPC--%20googleeshopping--googleeshopping&ita=1976&ito=googleshopping&istCompanyId=7255ccad-a1fc-4729-af31-478f79e5071c&istFeedId=385e6b9a-8b03-4076-a8bb-e4737df8549c&istItemId=itxmxpmap&istBid=t&cqqsrc=googleads&cqqcmp=8964966848&cqterm=&cqqplac=&cqnet=g&cqqplt=gp&gclid=CjwKCAjw9suYBhBIEiwA7iMhNFDVI2DNJPYekcj0O8mAr6CdffdxtcIJLkXgvohdLY5A5b5C962wRoCDxAQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Unusual for cats with outdoor access to choose to wee inside IME. A few questions for you:

1. How big is your house?
2. What is the outdoor situation? Can they go out whenever they like? Do you have a big garden, what's around it, are there other neighbourhood cats around?
3. What are the dynamics within the group, among the four cats?

It does sound like stress - that's a lot of change for them to go through. New kitty siblings, human siblings plus a house move is a lot in a short space of time.

A few questions:

Do the cats all get along? Are there any fights or squabbles?
Are you cleaning up accidents with a proper pet enzyme spray?
How are the cats with the children and vice versa? Did it start when you moved or get worse when the baby arrived?
Where are the litter trays? Do the cats have plenty of privacy and space when they use them?
Are all the food and water bowls far away from the trays?
What kind of access do they have to outside? Free range or do they have to ask?

And lastly, have they both been checked over by a vet and had urine samples taken to check for infection and crystals?