Hi all, my 7 month old cat has started scratching the walls at night to wake us up and it's driving us crazy. He'll do it around midnight, 3am, 4am or sometimes all three! I don't know why he started doing this but it needs to stop. We are renting the house we live in and I'm terrified we'll be charged to repaint the whole house when we eventually move out!
I'm not sure why he started doing this, for a couple of months he would sleep through the night or if he woke up would just go entertain himself, eat some dry food, use the litter box then go back to bed. Then he ripped a big hole in the bottom of our bed and climbed inside, this upset me but at least it's our own property and not the landlords. Lately he's just started scratching the walls, making that awful nails down a chalkboard sound. We try to ignore him but eventually I have to do something, and at 3am it's not positive attention! Generally I bang on the wall really hard which makes him stop for about a minute. This repeats a few times until he eventually stops. One night I got so angry that I locked him in his carrier for 10 minutes, he calmed down until around 5am. Spraying the walls with citrus scented spray seems to work for one night but the smells makes me feel ill, I also have to spray every single wall every night!
We play with him and feed him before bed, he has lots of toys left out too. He's desexed as well. He's a mainly indoor cat but we do spend some time outside each evening with a harness and lead, just to enrich his environment.
When we first got him we shut him out of the room and he was fine. I started leaving the bedroom door open over autumn/winter as our ducted heating doesn't work in the bedroom so I have to leave to door open to keep the room warm. He was fine sleeping on the bed for a couple of months then this destructive behaviour started. If we try to shut him out now I'm afraid he'll leave deep claw marks in the walls and doors! Please help, we need sleep and we need to save our house!
I'm not sure why he started doing this, for a couple of months he would sleep through the night or if he woke up would just go entertain himself, eat some dry food, use the litter box then go back to bed. Then he ripped a big hole in the bottom of our bed and climbed inside, this upset me but at least it's our own property and not the landlords. Lately he's just started scratching the walls, making that awful nails down a chalkboard sound. We try to ignore him but eventually I have to do something, and at 3am it's not positive attention! Generally I bang on the wall really hard which makes him stop for about a minute. This repeats a few times until he eventually stops. One night I got so angry that I locked him in his carrier for 10 minutes, he calmed down until around 5am. Spraying the walls with citrus scented spray seems to work for one night but the smells makes me feel ill, I also have to spray every single wall every night!
We play with him and feed him before bed, he has lots of toys left out too. He's desexed as well. He's a mainly indoor cat but we do spend some time outside each evening with a harness and lead, just to enrich his environment.
When we first got him we shut him out of the room and he was fine. I started leaving the bedroom door open over autumn/winter as our ducted heating doesn't work in the bedroom so I have to leave to door open to keep the room warm. He was fine sleeping on the bed for a couple of months then this destructive behaviour started. If we try to shut him out now I'm afraid he'll leave deep claw marks in the walls and doors! Please help, we need sleep and we need to save our house!