At our wits end - cat weeing everywhere

[Crishell]

We've got an 11 year old house cat and she just wees everywhere. If you leave anything soft on the floor, she wees on it. Any room with carpet in she wees in the corners so we have to shut off most rooms to her. She's now, however, started to wee on the sofa in our kitchen and we literally can't keep her out of the kitchen.

We have tried absolutely everything. Her litter trays are kept clean. We've tried them in different places. We've spoken to the vet several times who have suggested anti anxiety meds. Tried that, no change. Tried catnip, not bothered. She's overweight and we've tried to control her weight but no luck. We let her outside once but she went completely mental and was violently attacking us for several days. Vet said to keep her in.

I'm fed up of all my carpets spelling of cat wee. She's even weeing on the floor in certain rooms so half our rooms are closed off. We can't leave any doors or windows open in the summer in case she gets outside.

I honestly just want to re-home her but no idea how we'd even go about that.
She's weed in our 4 year olds bedroom which really upset me because her room now stinks.
We use enzyme cleaner which is effective but the smell of that stuff just mixes in with the wee and the smell is almost worse.

I'm just fed up.
What do we do?

Sounds like she's stressed. Have you tried the plug in? They literally will surround themselves with a moat of pee to feel safe to unknown outside intruders.

Jackson galaxy is good for tips. He's on YouTube I think.

Has the vet checked her for a UTI?

Not recently. She's been like this since she was a kitten though. She's wrecked three houses now!

@gamerchick I've not tried one of those no. I'll buy one though. Worth a shot.

You will need to get more than one plug in to make sure the smell is strong enough for it to have an effect.

We have the same issue and it's hell so I feel your pain. It's not quite as bad for us as what you describe but there are certain areas in our house that the cat can't be let in because of this issue.

The only thing we have found that works (and this is unlikely to be practical for you) is putting her food bowls where she pees. Animals don't toilet where they eat. It means we have cat food bowls in various locations in the house but it does work.

We were prescribed some pain killers by the vet to see if it helped (it didn't) but might be worth trying.

I've also been in contact with a rescue charity about potentially rehoming her. You could do the same. They are at breaking point at the moment though. It may be that she doesn't like being in a house with a baby perhaps.

If nothing else works then I agree rehoming is the only option. I know exactly how you feel- it makes me feel so upset and stressed and ashamed that our house is like this.

Which litter is in her tray? If it’s too rough they won’t use it and indoor cats paws are soft whereas outdoor cats paws are tougher.

I honestly just want to re-home her but no idea how we'd even go about that.

I don't want to upset you, but nobody is going to want to take on an 11yo cat that pees all over the house. At her age and with her problems the likelihood is that she would be put to sleep.

But, to be honest, I don't think that would be the worst thing for her. A cat who urinates all over the house and has done on a daily basis for over a decade is not a happy cat.

It might not be a popular view but I would be thinking about her quality of life and whether it would be kinder to let her go.

See some animals like humans are just arseholes. She doesn't sound as if she's ever been happy or just doesn't give a shit.

Being PTS would probably be kinder than her spending her time in a rescue. Nobody is going to re-home a cat that has always peed everywhere.

I agree with this 😞

She hates her life. And always has. Poor dcat. Can you build an outdoor enclosure so she can enjoy outdoors safely?

One of our cats started soiling in our upstairs bathroom. It turned out she has some arthritis and was likely avoiding going down stairs. We put a tray upstairs for her and that solves the problem.But when cleaning up accidents I always find a solution of warm water with biological washing powder to clean up accidents on soft furnishings to cleanse and neutralise the odour causers, followed by a misting of water/white vinegar solution to discourage the cat from revisiting that site to repeat the deed. GL

Thanks everyone.

I agree I don't think she's a happy cat at all. Never has been.

If we leave a door open, she'll try to get outside. I do wonder if she'd be happier outside but I think she's past that to be honest. Next door have 6 cats and the other 2, so she'd be stressed out by them.

Having her PTS sounds brutal, but she's not living a great life really, or a healthy one.

I may speak to the vet again next week and see what they say.

Do you think she would be happier as a barn or stable cat somewhere? We have a lot of them around here and they get food, water and shelter provided but there's no need to worry about accidents as they don't have house access.

One of them made the local news recently as he was still going at eighteen years old!

My cat did that recently and probably since we moved into our new house. She is 13 and was an indoor cat for 12 years in my tiny flat. She was always good and used her litter bin.

I moved in my partner into his 3 bedroom house and a lovely safe garden. Let her out supervised and she loved it. She did become less purry and cuddley but figured it was because she was outside lots.

until I caught her peeing at the front door in the carpet. Turns out she had been doing it lots. No idea why we didn’t smell it. The underlay stank and it had stained the concrete.

Went to vets got antibiotics and pain control. I scrubbed carpets using carpet cleaner. Put tinfoil in areas she was peeing in with little bowls of food. Moved the litter bin closer to the area. Bought plug in de stresser. I also bought some herbal cystitis tablets that also act to calm cats.

no idea what worked as I think I got obsessed. But worked. She is back to happy. I think it’s the tablets, I remember using them with a foster cat that peed everywhere and thst worked.

We are having the same problem with our cat at the moment. Ours is a slightly more unusual situation in that he has a few additional needs at play…mostly blind, epileptic, some sort of cerebral palsy which means he is tiny and pretty weak-can’t properly wash himself etc He was completely litter trained when we acquired him him but is now weeing everywhere. We know when he needs one as he is a creature of habit-long sleep, food and then prowls around looking for somewhere to go. We can put him in the litter tray at this point 10 time but he just gets out again and does it on the floor-not in the same place. He hasn’t been neutered as he still isn’t above the ideal 2kg weight but wondering if he’s now hitting delayed cat puberty (he’s 16m) and is scent marking?! The vet has ok-ed him for castration next week so will see if that makes a difference. It’s a definite choice to wee like this-he always poos in the litter tray (we have 3 and they are immaculately clean!). If he was spraying, I could sort of see it was scent marking, but it’s just weeing-small amounts. I don’t know that he is actually coordinated enough to spray as he’s a bit wobbly! He’s had a course of antibiotics in case it was a uti.

If this doesn’t work, I don’t know what else there is to try :(

Please check her for UTI - if she associates the litter box with pain, she'll pee somewhere else.

I have a cat who gets UTIs, and I give him Urinary Gold drops at the first sign of something being up: they've saved him the stress and us the expense of a vet visit on enough occasions now to be worth the cost (about £40 a bottle!)

You can also get D-mannose for cats - dissolve 1/4tsp in milk or wet food. D-mannose is a sugar that binds to the bacteria that cause UTIs and flushes it all out.

So sorry you're going through this - been there and it's not fun, but I understand why ours does it now and hope some of this helps.

Oh, and Bio Sta-Kill spray is amazing at getting the smell out of floors!

I suggest you try a different litter. We had this with our cat and changing to a sand type litter (from a sort of wood type) resolved it.

I had tried loads of other things, removing environmental factors I thought might be stressing her, had her at the vet a number of times, the plug ins (she hated them). It didn’t occur to me it might be the type of litter as she had previously been using the litter and I didn’t connect type of litter with her behaviour.

We changed the litter and the vet prescribed YuCalm Cat and he is now fine. He is also on a urinary diet.

What's a urinary diet?

It’s a prescription food with a supplement for the lining of their bladders, but you can just buy Cystease and sprinkle it on their wet food.

We were in the same situation - it started when our cat was about five years old - he’s now ten - it was miserable for us all but after extensive research I found that stressed cats in the US are prescribed Fluroxetine - an antidepressant. We eventually persuaded our vet to prescribe it and it hasn’t happened since! Five years of at least a spray and wee a day to nothing! It’s been miraculous!

This thread is helpful, I have this problem and I am going out of my mind with a house that stinks of cat piss.

Things that work for my unhappy weeing cat:

A lot of mental stimulation - playing with her, making her go outside for a sniff around everyday. Watch Jackson Galaxy for tips, it turned out I was rubbish at cat play
More litter bins
Daily Metacam when she flares up - weeing over the side of the bin, or spending a lot of time digging are the first warning signs
Vetpro Urinary - we thought this was some rubbish the vet wanted to sell but when we stop it, the problem comes back
Feliway - you may have to experiment to see which one she responds to
Upping fluid content of her diet - she is obsessed with cat milk
Urinary diet

Unfortunately I'm allergic to Feliway which is a shame as it solved the problem overnight. However we found she also responds to Comfort Zone Calming Pheromone Collar - which is even better as the collar goes where she does so she's always calm!

If you have a cat like this, it's not UTI it's a stress related bladder problem. I've had 3 cats prone to it now but current cat is by far the worst, when one actually got a UTI it was very different.

What worked with mine was to give him a soft thing to pee on. So I bought some washable waterproof puppy pads and leave them in the bathroom,his favoutie peeing place, Not idea but at least I can wash them.

My friend's cat did this and she was diabetic. Have the cat checked for diabetes. Xx