Help! Cats ruining new carpet

[Sluj]

For various complicated reasons, our cats sleep in the living room at night. We have just had new carpet and they are having a grand old time scratching at it near the door. Any ideas please before
DH loses it 🤣

It's what cats do.
You can try a cat replant spray.
They are scratching near the door because you have locked them in..
Cats don't like being locked in.

Open the door.

Or accept that your carpet will be ruined around the door.

Haha, I know all that thanks but like I said, there are reasons why they have to stay in there at night. They are 14, I'm not a new cat owner !

Get a rug?

Thanks Elaan, I did try that but couldn't open the door over it. I wondered about some kind of sellotape or spray maybe? Anyone tried that?

You can get some large sticky plastic to stick down but you have to keep it there so walking may be difficult

Have you tried tinfoil?

I place tin foil on the areas they actatch using masking tape

Our cats never touched our carpet.. until we replaced it with exactly the same new carpet! We needn't have bothered. There can be a scratching post right next to them, they'll choose the carpet every time.

I hadn't thought of tin foil. I expect I would have to replace it fairly frequently but worth a try. Did you have to keep it there permanently or just till they got the message?

Put a scratching post next to this area, cover in catnip and it should help deflect the scratching. They are trying to mark their territory. New carpet has erased their scent so they'll be trying to re-scent. Deflect with a post or wall/door scratcher.

Put a scratching board along the bottom of the door.

Lemongrass, citrus, or lavender essential oils puts mine off scratching the stairs. But I have to top it up daily. Plus side makes the house smell nice!

Be careful. Look up essential oil toxicity in cats.

All of ours would always scratch the carpet if shut in a room as they were just trying to get out . Agree with the tinfoil though , we’ve used it to deter scratching in several places .

Im assuming they have their litter tray and water and food in the living room too , otherwise their need to get out of the room will probably outweigh anything you try .

Cardboard box next to the door. Ours bites it to pieces to relieve his various gripes with life.

As long as its needed their scent is on the carpet they will return to it

I was going to suggest a rug but no use if the door opens over it. I like the sound of a scratching board along the base of the door, assuming it gets pushed out of the way when the door is opened

We had a cat that didn't scratch carpet!

Had a lovely wool carpet put in the living room as it was always cold in there! All good!
Cat goes missing, 6 months later 2 new rescue cats arrive & one of them is a carpet scratcher! It's a nightmare but we love him! 🤷‍♀️

I have a carpet covered board over the arm of a new sofa my cat started to destroy. And tacked a piece of carpet onto the wall in the kitchen which she uses a lot

It's going to be difficult to get them to stop. As others said, they are mainly doing it because the door is shut and cats don't like closed doors! I once taped some cardboard to the floor under my son's bedroom door because he wanted to sleep with the door completely shut and of course the cats who had the entire rest of the house then wanted to go in... That might work?

70s style plastic carpet protector?

That's what I was going to suggest - but slid under the door with a bit sticking out the other side so it's not easily moved
Our cats wrecked the landing carpets upstairs in the doorways so we admitted defeat and put hard floor down!

Thanks everyone. I'm using a spray at the moment plus some flexible chopping sheets under the door to protect the edges. I'll try some of these other things if that doesn't work