Behavioural weeing on the floor - help!

[sandbeachgalore]

Our cat (7yo female) has got this habit which is driving us crazy. She habitually wees on the floor in a fairly specific place at least 1 or 2 times in a 24 hour period. The rest of the time she quite happily goes outside in the garden. We've never had litter trays, she's always gone outside with no issues. There's cats in the local area but nothing new. Lived here all her life.

What we've tried....

Vets - no issues. Says it's behavioural. It happened for a while similarly a few years ago and going in the cattery made her forget and stop. Likely behavioural type cystitis (rather than due to medical reasons)

Litter tray - she wees on the floor next to it and won't use it.

Cleaning the area with all the products / enzyme cleaners etc - no change

Covering the area - wees on top of what ever covers it.

Can't keep her away from the area as her area of choice is the main through passage through the house so impossible to avoid.

We're all tearing our hair out. It stinks despite cleaning. It's getting into the wood. You never know when you might step in random wee (it's at the bottom of stairs)

We've got visitors coming for Xmas soon and I honestly don't know what to do. It's disgusting and we're all miserable dealing with it. Kids hate it. Husband wants to get rid of the cat.

It's really expensive to stick her in the cattery for 2 weeks like last time and it might not even stop her this time.....

Help, please!

We've pretty much tried all of the suggestions here for dealing with the wee area. Nothing has worked.

I think the next thing to try is to confine her to 1 room to try and break the habit. Then try locking her out of the house if that doesn't work. If they don't work, I guess rehoming is our only option.

She had crystals in her bladder. She needed an operation and then special urinary food. We discovered is was a problem when she weed in the bath and we could see there was blood.

Also - haven't read all the read but have you had her checked by a vet @sandbeachgalore ?

Following as having a similar problem. In our case I think the cat is stressed by a neighbour s cat who is bullying her. I can’t handle the wee all over the house for much longer though.

Same.

It prospect of lots of visitors over Christmas stepping in wee on their way to the kitchen could literally make me cry right now.

My cat was doing this in the kitchen. Vet found no problem. I finally tried Feliway Optimum, Feliway Cystease and Zylkene and it has stopped. She was over grooming her belly for years and this has also stopped. I think her bladder was irritating her hence the over grooming, and it all got a bit much.

You say she ignores the litter tray (and it’s a trip hazard, which it is), does the litter tray have litter in it? One of my cats decided to start pooing regularly and peeing occasionally on the floor after being ambushed by one of the others. I got a large potting tray which she now uses, but without any litter in it. She has arthritis and I think it must be a sensory thing when she tries to balance.

Whilst it might not be a long term solution, an empty tray might start to break the habit it is becoming, even if you only put it out overnight.

I hope you manage to get it sorted, for her sake and yours - it’s soul destroying when they start having issues like this

Try putting a food bowl where she wees. She won't want to wee near her food.

Lock her in the kitchen, downstairs loo, at night with a bed and tray.

Has she been neutured?

Appreciate you've tried a lot of cleaning products already - but in case it helps I found that rubbing with a concentrated solution of biological laundry liquid and hot water, left to dry then rubbed with surgical spirit removed the odour and stopped my cat going in a spot in the house that had become routine.

Thank you, I'll look into those.

We've tried both empty tray and with litter in the tray and it didn't make any difference. She still just goes on the floor next to it.

We're going to try this next.

She has been. Long time ago now!

It's hardly the time of year to lock her out through the night, contain her in the kitchen at night, that might break the habit, not sure why you've not limited her access before now.
Also, thinking of rehoming, do you think it's fair that a problem you can't solve should be someone else problem? or she faces a life of being adopted and returned if the behaviour doesn't stop.

Has your cat’s pee being tested for its ph level? Maybe it isn’t acidic enough which can lead to anything from mild urinary tract infection (which may be too mild to be spotted by your vet but makes your cat feel very uncomfortable) to struvite crystals (which doesn’t seem to be the case here). This could very easily be treated with DL-methionine.

You have my sympathies. This sounds horrible. The issue is they can smell the residual pee.

I've found success washing the area with a solution of vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. Need to wash a gigantic area, not just where the pee is. Let it dry. Repeat as many times as you can manage. Spray with enzymatic cleaner. Dry. Spray the area with surgical spirit.

I bought the very thick tinfoil and covered the area with it. Put a food dish there and kept the cat locked away from it. It's hellish, you are anxious all the time that it will recur. I've also found that offering 2 litter trays helped. One for peeing, one for poos.

Good luck.

I know you said she'd been to vet but perhaps try this to see of there might be an underlying urinary issue https://www.katkin.com/health-litter

Definitely confine overnight to break the habit and reduce the smell in that area. Cat's will return to wee in the same spot if there's the slightest whiff of wee so keep cleaning it even after she's confined so that hopefully the smell fades completely.

How old are your children? do you think she could be stressed by them, if they're still at the unpredictably shouty age?

Have you tried Feliway and supplements for stress?

There's lots of reasons why locking her (and her sister) in the kitchen is difficult for us. If it was an easy option I would have tried it by now.

Also - sometimes she doesn't do it. There's no pattern. Just randomly she might wee. Sometimes we think it's getting better then it gets worse again. We've been trying loads of other options first.

Rehoming her is a last resort but we can't live like this anymore.

Early teenage so they are quiet. They have SEN so cannot deal with the smell, the uncertainty etc.