Cats spraying in the house and basement!

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jessfish727
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Cats spraying in the house and basement!

Post by jessfish727 »

Okay, so we have 8, yes 8, cats and this past winter it was quite cold so they stayed inside a lot. But we have noticed there has been way more spraying on things in the basement and upstairs in the house and it's driving us nuts!!! I have tried LOTS of different things, but nothing really seems to completely eliminate the smell or stop the spraying. Does anyone else have this problem or have any suggestions??
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Mayday21
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Re: Cats spraying in the house and basement!

Post by Mayday21 »

Hi Jessfish unsure if I can help but have you tried special masking urine products. Here we have a few but I used ‘Urine Off’ when Harper sprayed & toileted in my walk-in-wardrobe’s carpet. She was only a kitten & I used to put plastic garbage bags down & when I heard her n the bags in the early hrs & got up, picked her up & put her in the litter tray. With 8 it may be a territorial thing. Have you enough litter trays out & do they like the litter. With my 5 I have 4 litter trays (2 hooded & 2 open) & I change litter every 3-4 days on a rotating basis so they have at least 1 fresh tray every 2nd day. Previous posts on similar issues have suggested trays with different types of litter in case it’s the litter they don’t like. Sure you know there’s scent diffusers such as Fellaway. I’m sure more experienced peeps will offer advice. Keep us posted. Vivian & The Famous Five from Oz
jessfish727
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Re: Cats spraying in the house and basement!

Post by jessfish727 »

Hi Vivian and the Famous Five from Oz,

Yes, I have tried several enzyme products and other products from Amazon or have used for suggestions from my vet. We have 3 boxes and I use Yesterday's News and a little bit of Fresh Step clay litter. Our cats are indoor/outdoor, as we have about 4.5 acres and live on a back road. They are all spayed and neutered, but every once in while a stray male comes along and that seems to instigate it. I keep the cat boxes very clean. I'm am OCD and I cannot stand dirt or smells and even though I love kitties and don't like the smell of their pee! I dump the box in our woods since and wash it out and dry and put fresh litter in a lot, not so much in the summer, but in the winter every day. I just keep reading about this or that product that may help stop them. I've tried Feliway and all those sorts of things. :( I do know that bleach works well cleaning up the smell if it's on the basement floor because it's cement, but I don't dare use it anywhere else. I'll see if other people have any ideas too.

Thank you for replying!

Jess
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Mollycat
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Re: Cats spraying in the house and basement!

Post by Mollycat »

It does sound territorial with that many of them, but that doesn't answer why they are doing it now and not before.

The general rule of thumb is one tray per cat plus one, which would make 9 trays to keep up with, but again if everything is the same as before that doesn't explain why now.

Are there any new cats since last year, or has one of the cats gone, or is one of them ill? That can change the dynamics of the whole colony (hope you don't mind me calling them that but effectively that's kind of what they are)

I'm sure you know the basics like don't use bleach as it will make them spray more. Personally I'd be looking at the dynamics of what's going on in the group. They are spraying for a reason, to leave their scent or because they are upset about something or someone is ill, or something else. Covering up the scent without dealing with why isn't likely to deal with the problem. Could even be as simple as they are all spending more time in this space because it's cold out and it's a little too much closeness for some of them.
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Ruth B
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Re: Cats spraying in the house and basement!

Post by Ruth B »

Like the others, it does sound territorial to me and the best way to deal with it would be to get to the bottom of the issue rather than treating the symptoms.

You mentioned a stray male coming around, can he actually gain access to your house via a cat flap. If he can then stopping him coming in would probably go a long way to helping, if your cats are chipped then a microchip activated cat flap might be the answer. Do you know if he is neutered or not, if he isn't then I would suggest putting a paper collar on him with a phone number to try and find out if he has an owner, if no one contacts you then contact a charity to see if they would help, either by taking him in or neutering and returning him.

A couple of other things to mention. Beware of using bleach to clean areas, the break down products from the bleach can smell very similar to the break down products from cat urine and can encourage them to spray to cover it over, it is why an enzyme cleaner is always recommended. Cat urine is also horrendous stuff and will eat into wall plaster and possibly concrete even, you need to check areas that are sprayed regularly just to make sure there are no problems developing.
jessfish727
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Re: Cats spraying in the house and basement!

Post by jessfish727 »

Thank you all for replying, I really appreciate it! Some cats are microchipped, ones that we went to a shelter to adopt, but we've also had 4 drop offs unfortunately and we did not get them chipped. We would love a kitty door, but always afraid other cats will get in. Now that I'm thinking about it more, we have a 'colony' several houses down from us, well, there's lots of woods and farms up that way and we are sure our drop offs came from one of the houses and/or the farms, as they all are gray or tabbies. So the girl down the road from us, she has about 20 cats, no kidding! She does NOT have any of them fixed and of course they keep multiplying. I think there are two males that keep coming from there and trying to pick fights with one of our kitties. The thing is, they usually come at night and I don't always see them, but I have heard them. It's frustrating because we are in such a rural area and a lot of people are 'poor' and they prefer their cigarettes/alcohol, no offense, over getting their cats spayed/neutered. So maybe that's what the problem is with other cats coming around then. We have had at least one a year come around to fight with our kitties. Very frustrating! About having several boxes, I truly understand they say 1 box for every kitty, but with ours being indoor/outdoor they actually do a lot of their business outside...in my flower gardens because it has mulch in it. :) Even when it was cold here they would still go out to pee/poop and then come back in. I always thought I knew so much about cats but I guess not!! I'm going to do some more internet searching on enzyme stuff. And I did NOT know that about bleach!!! Omg! We have a rescue in our area called CauseforPaws and I have fostered for her and she told me bleach for the basement since it's just concrete. She has been with cats all her life. Hmmmm....guess I need to do more research!! She did tell me though that our cats were spraying because there's other unfixed males around. :| Ugh.
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