Poop Outside Of Box

[wawadoll8]

Hello fellow feline friends

I noticed a couple days ago a couple tiny black ants behind the side of my kitty cat's litter box and used a solution of vinegar and water to spray and get rid of them. The ant situation has continued on and I continue spraying. Today, my kitty cat who has been loyal to and very good about his kitty litter box pooped outside the box in my living room corner near his cat scratching post shortly after I did another vinegar spray.

He has never done this before, and so I am sure the vinegar scent is repelling my kitty boy and do not want him to think that he can't go to his litter box and can go poop in the living room.

Any suggestions to naturally get rid of ants while not repelling the scent to my kitty cat to use his box? I've been reading up on ant traps that have borax and, luckily, this is behind the radiatior where I can probably tape the ant trap and away from my kitty cat, but I do not want to take any chances to put my Ricky kitty in harm's way.

Please help as I do not want it to be an ongoing situation that Ricky poops outside the box! Thanks so much!

Have a good day and Happy Holidays!

Keep smilin',
Mary :-)

 

[Ronboof]

If your boy is indoor only it might be good to do a perimeter spray outside to stop the ants from getting in, we have the same problem and this helps a bit. We also get spiders in the house which I discovered were coming in through the drain in the laundry. Sprayed around the drain points outside and we havent had any in months now!

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Can you move the litter box a little way away until the scent dissipates?

 

[ManekiNekko]

*If* you do decide to go the indoor borax route, I just wanted to agree that you can probably find a way to do it safely. When we had an ant infestation in our sub flooring this year (so I could't treat from the outside), we used borax/sugar traps (Terro brand) that we then covered with a plastic tupperware, slightly propped up by a piece of cardboard to leave room for the ants to get in and out, and then weighted down on top so the cats couldn't knock the tupperware out of the way or have any chance of getting at the trap itself. This also worked fine for us because our cats showed zero interest in the trap. (They also showed zero interest in the ants, which surprised me considering how interested they usually are in spiders). Near the radiator would definitely be a slightly different situation 'cause you'd want to be more careful about making sure things couldn't melt or catch fire and if your cat is very curios or very small, those would also make things a little harder, but I'm sure the forum could help you come up with a solution in that case.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

I've made cat-proof insect traps with small jar lids (for the borax) and empty tuna cans with wooden matchsticks glued to the rim as "feet" to give the ants a way to get in.

 

[wawadoll8]

Thank you so much for all the tips! I found a great pet/cat-friendly repellant spray Ortho® Home Defense Insect Killer For Indoor & Perimeter AND ended up using RAID traps. Luckily, there were only a couple ants scurrying around the box and NOT in the box. I ended up doing a huge clean-up of the box, bathroom area, etc. Now, everything is looking good! Whew!!

 

[Mamanyt1953]

EXCELLENT! Sound like you have this under control.