Kitten Started Going Potty Outside Litter Box?

[tewing84]

We currently have two foster kittens and one of them just recently started going to the bathroom outside the box. Took us a few times to figure out who it was, but finally caught her. So far she's pee'd in our bed while we were sleeping, pooped on a dirty towel on the floor, and pee'd on the shower mat.

We've had them for 2 months and gave them free roam of the house about a month ago. She just started doing this a week ago, and it's the roughest playing kitten. We have a total of 8 cats in the house, 4 are ours. Are there too many cats in the house for her or maybe not enough litter boxes?

We want to make sure to figure it out before she's adopted so she doesn't get returned.

 

[jcat]

Have you seen this article? How To Solve Litterbox Problems In Cats: The Ultimate Guide

How many litter boxes do you have? The rule of thumb is one per cat, plus one, which would mean a minimum of 9. Some cats require one for "#1" and another for "#2", while others absolutely refuse to use a box after another cat has, so the more you have, the better.

Stress can also play a role, and another 7 cats in the house really may be too many for her.

 

[tewing84]

Right now we only have 6 So I'm sure that's not helping. We've always had one box for each of our cats, which has always worked well for them and hasn't caused problems. Then once we started fostering we added two more. It was hard when we had 4 boxes, so adding 2 was a little painful. (The struggles of a multi-cat house). Was just curious if there's anything else that could be causing it

We're going to start putting them back in our spare bathroom with their own box when we're not at home or when we're sleeping. She's only doing it in the early mornings. I feel bad because the other kitten is super sweet and sleeps on our pillows all through the night.