We have one cat pooping and peeing on the floors and rugs

by kim
(Mesquite, Nevada)

We have 4 cats, two from her house, and two from mine. 3 were ferals, 1 is a longhair. We had two small boxes in the laundry room, and we moved them outside on a deck.

The cats have to use a kitty door to get to them, and we replaced the 2 small boxes with one large box.

The new box in the new location gets a lot of use, but some cat is using the floor, and rugs in the house, to go to the bathroom. We don't know which cat, or cats is doing it. How can we solve the problem?

My thoughts: I'm sorry to hear that your cat is having problems. I'm assuming that all cats are healthy and a medical problem is not causing this. I'm further assuming that this problem started right after you changed litter box arrangements.

If the vet has declared all the cats healthy, I would do two things. First, to state the obvious, I would reverse the litter box changes in case that has upset one of the cats. Cats can be very sensitive to any changes in the home, especially to something as important as the litter box.

Second, I would attempt to determine which cat is having the problem (assuming it's only one cat). If the same locations are being used each time, then a motion activated camera can be placed so that the culprit can be identified.

Another method for identifying the problem child is to divide and conquer. Let's say the accidents are happening every day. Isolate two of the four cats for a day in a separate part of the house.

No matter which part of the house the accidents happen in that day, you know that at least one of the two cats in one of the pairs is at fault.

At worst, you now have only two cats to bring to the vet for a check up and do behavior modification with instead of four. But... you can do one better and do a switcheroo and swap kitty partners. Wherever the accident occurs that day, you now have your winner, so to speak.

As always, I will empasize the need to be aware that if a medical problem is at fault, you'll never solve the problem without addressing that first.

Some of the other top reasons for cats not using the box are stress (what might be stressing your cat?), or a litter box that is not to the cat's liking, including size, location, cleanliness, litter type, and so on. And... that brings us back to reversing the changes that were made to see if perhaps that has triggered the problem.

One last thought... I don't know how long the cats have been together or how they were introduced, but if the cats were not introduced slowly, problems can arise later.

If that's the case, it's possible that the stress from a quick introduction/relocation is rearing its ugly head. It's also possible that some of the cats aren't getting along as well as we'd like. Perhaps there's some box guarding going on?

I hope that helps give you some ideas and please let us know how your kitties progress with this problem.

Kurt