Cat peeing after house reno and new baby

[handbagsandholidays]

I'm at an absolute loss about what to do. I really am. I had a very difficult pregnancy and spent the majority of my stay in hospital. Our cat is 2.5years old and is an indoor cat. We have had her since she was a kitten. Our son was born prematurely and so our cat had to go to a cattery for 1 month. She has been to that cattery when we have been on holiday before. When my son came out of hospital and I was discharged home, we brought her home from the cattery and stayed with my in-laws. She's used to their house as we live in the annex to their home. We stayed their until the end of October. We finally moved back to our flat which had been renovated. Since we moved back home, she has been overthrowing and licked her legs bare in patches. She is peeing outside of her litter tray but pooing inside it. She has ripped the curtains and at times bitten us in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. She is ripping up the brand new carpets and peeing in all sorts of places. I don't know what to do. We have plenty of toys for her, safe spaces, scratchers, feliway plugs and extra litter trays. We give her one on one time to play and pet but it's just not enough and i'm exhausted at cleaning up her pee and managing a newborn baby. I feel like we have done everything we can to reduce her stress but nothing is working. Our 11 year old would be devastated at the thought of our cat being given away but I'm genuinely at a loss with what to do. Please help if you can!

Have you tried zyklene or pet remedy. I found them more effective than feliway. She's had a massive upheaval. So maybe just needs more time to settle down. She's. Even the the cattery, your in laws and now her home doesn't smell like her home. That is a lot for a human, let alone throwing a new baby in the mix.

Your cat -
1 spent a whole month away from her territory, so had other smells and noises going on all the time.
2..Then had to stay at your inlaw's.
3 Went back home but the place was different, so the smells and layout(?) are different.

1. Has got the sounds and smells of a new person (baby) to try to get used to.

What's the reason for her being an indoor cat? Cats are meant to roam, climb, explore outside. Please either let her go out, or rehome her to someone with more time/less upheaval going on.

Cat-owner of 42 years.

I've not tried Zyklene so will give that a go. Thank you. My in-laws smelt like her often as we would spend quite a bit of time there previously. We also made sure we had all her usual bits such as blankets and scratching tree, pillow etc to try and help. I recognise that's it's a lot of stress and upheaval... I just don't know how to make it better for us al! X

Have you been to the vets? Cats can get stress cystitis etc and that’s a lot of stress for a cat.

Oh bless her, that's so much upheaval in a short space of time - I'm not surprised she's stressed.

Is there a reason she's not allowed out?

I have no issue with indoor cats (mine all live inside) but it doesn't suit them all and many cats are miserable living indoors.

I would really recommend letting her out.

She isn't a roaming cat. I do let her out in the garden supervised, although she's not too fussed about it. I tend to hide treats in the garden. When she was younger, I'd take her out on a cat lead but now she sort of knows the garden boundaries so I take her out without a lead and simply supervise her. Many of the neighbourhood cats fight and can be seen with injuries. There was also a spate of cat torture incidents last summer where somebody was skinning the tail ends of cats which horrified me. I couldn't imagine the thought of something like that happening to her. I recognise that it has been a lot of upheaval for her but we've tried to make it all as accommodating as we can for her. I don't know what more to do. We've kept her things the same and in the same places for familiarity. Our 11 year old is in tears at the thought of having to rehome her but I can see why you would think it's for the best. Do you get open adoptions with pets? We would even be happy to continue to contribute to the cost of her care but just hate that the current situation is so stressful for bother she and I. We are also due to move home again in 12-18 months and the thought of having to go through this again terrifies me.

Our cat did this when youngest was a newborn it went on for about 6 months we thought at first it was maybe a uti but it wasn’t I think it was just n adjustment thing . Then he was fine for 2 years and started doing it again recently when I was unwell so it’s definitely stress related we got a plug in which helped a bit