How to prevent carpet damage by my cat?

[vanemeow]

I have 2 adult cats (tabby and calico). The tabby has become incredibly bothersome when my husband and I are trying to sleep. We don’t let our cats inside because they chase each other and the tabby just walks all over our heads and knock things off in the middle of the night. We close our door at night to sleep but the tabby has been really annoying us.

We live in an apartment with carpet. We rent the place. The tabby starts clawing the carpet in hopes we open the door. We bought a rug to prevent further carpet damage and she found a way to lift it up and claw through. The damage on the carpet looks bad already. We are tired that she keeps clawing the carpet to get attention. It doesn’t let us sleep because of the noise and concern she’s damaging it even more. We will definitely lose out on the deposit which was a lot and probably pay out of pocket when we move out.

This cat disturbs our sleep and we don’t know what to do. I have sleep problems. I wake up early for work and need to fully rest since I commute a long commute.

We changed the feeding routine to a schedule. We play with the cats and before bedtime. This is just getting out of hand. The tabby is the more troublesome. The calico let’s us sleep through the night and is always happy to see us in the morning.

what can I do to protect the carpet from further damage? Any tips dealing with my nightmarish cat?

 

[Purr-fect]

You might try spreading a pepper powder, or some other non staining hot or spicy spray on the carpet area where the cat is scratching. Make sure it wont stain or further damage the carpet. There are sprays such as "critter rid", but they will be unpleasant for you as well and are hard to clean up as they have an oily base.

But the real solution might be caging the tabby at night. We had to do it to our little tabby years ago. But I used a large dog cage (maybe 3 feet long) and she was a smaller cat, so had room to move about. We also put in soft blankets for her and washed them frequently. She was put in her cage just before we went to sleep and taken out firstvthing in the morning.

The cage might not have to be a permanent solution. One night I picked up my little cat to put her in her cage at bedtime. She let out a terrible, pitiful cry. She knew she was going to her cage. The cry broke my heart. From that night she never slept in the cage again.........and she let us sleep. We had reached an understanding. After that, she slept quietly on our bed at night.

 

[catdadMI]

Im wondering if you could get a plastic runner and put it upside down under the door. The nubs on the plastic runner would be uncomfortable for her to walk on and with it under the door she probably couldnt move it very easily.

 

[lollie]

They say to completely ignore anything they are doing, such as scratching at the door. Even to yell at them is reinforcement in the form of attention. However, since this can take weeks, and you are incurring damage, I would suggest a deterrent instead. I would recommend something called Ssscat. It is basically a can of air with a motion activation powered by batteries. It just sprays a puff of air that makes a noise. It’s completely harmless, but cats hate it. This is how I stopped my cat from getting under the Christmas tree.

 

[Margot Lane]

Or, give up. What‘s under the carpet? Anything worth resusciating?

 

[LTS3]

Here's some general tips on how to get some sleep at night: How To Stop My Cat From Waking Me Up At Night (step-by-step Plan) – TheCatSite Articles

A Scat Mat or something outside the door may deter scratching.

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