Sister cats peeing on our recliner and pooping outside of the litter box

[veryfrustratedcatstepmom]

My husband's cats continuously urinate on any recliner that comes into our house(plus they urinate on MY clothes and down our walls), we had to throw two expensive recliners away because of them. I started putting training pads on our newest recliner (that they have already urinated on) to protect it from soaking up anymore urine. I found that they will not urinate on the chair with the training pads on it, but as soon as the pads come off and nobody is in the room, one or both of the cats will urinate on the chair, why is that? Is it because they are just badly behaved cats? I took one of them to the vet and explained the situation, he said it could possibly be a UTI, so the vet gave her a shot of antibiotics, a UTI is clearly not the issue for the one I took to the vet, the other one that urinates on the recliner and other places has not been checked out by a vet recently.

I don't know if this matters, but these cats are sisters, my husband told me that they have behaved like this their whole life since they were kittens. They used to live with my husband's mom and they destroyed her house while my husband was between houses. She had to have all of her floors replaced, she seriously had to have every part of the flooring replaced because of these cats, her house smelled so bad before she spent thousands of dollars replacing the floors, and my husband was completely fine with his cats destroying his mom's house! He felt no remorse for her having to spend thousands of dollars to fix what his cats did.

Also, they poop right next to their litter boxes. I have tried just about everything to fix their issues, I'm at the end of my rope with these cats. Like I stated previously the cats are my husband's, he is perfectly fine with them urinating and pooping everywhere and stinking up our house, I absolutely am not, I'm about to lose it. These cats and their im assuming bad behaviors are really putting a strain on our marriage.

They completely destroyed our first apartment, first house and now they are well on their way to destroying our new home that we just moved into. All of our previous homes that they destroyed caused us to lose thousands of dollars in deposits and fees because they were rental properties.

I am out of patience. We have tried moving the litter boxes(didn't work), we have tried changing boxes(didn't work), we tried changing litters(worked for a very short period of time). We have tried it all, cat attract, diffusers, special litter that has cat attract in it, we have done everything to try and stop the madness.

I have done so much research and nothing has worked. I finally found natures miracle urine destroyer which completely takes the smell of urine out of anything, but I am just not content with allowing them to urinate and poop everywhere just to have to work hard to scrub things clean. This is just getting ridiculous.

I have always liked dogs and cats, but because of what these cats have done and continue to do, I never want another cat to step foot in our home after they are gone. We have 4 cats total and the other two are box trained and behave properly. The sister cats are the nuisance cats in our home.

Can anyone out there offer any kind of advice or give me some fresh new ideas on what to do to stop them from destroying our home more than they already have?

If I can't find a solution then the next step is my husband getting rid of them, I really don't want him to have to get rid of them, but urinating and pooping everywhere is not healthy for our family, it just isn't, it's gross and embarrassing. I really don't see this situation having a happy ending because they have done this since they were kittens.

Reaching out on this forum is my last attempt to get this under control.

 

[IndyJones]

First thing is are they spayed? If they aren't it could be teritorial. How often do you clean the boxes? How many are there? Based on 4 cats you should have 5 boxes. Were these cats ever actualy trained to use the box?

The peeing on the walls sounds like spraying to me.

 

[veryfrustratedcatstepmom]

Yes, they are spayed and I clean their boxes daily. We do have 5 litter boxes, some upstairs and some downstairs. I have no idea if my husband actually trained them to use the litter box or not. My husband and I got together almost 5 years ago, they have been with us since we moved in together almost 5 years ago.

 

[IndyJones]

You may have to retrain them as if they were kittens again. But before that, have crystals been ruled out? I know you said one had a shot of antibiotics that did nothing but was a urinalysis done at the same time?

Not being critical just wanting to be sure medical issues are completly ruled out.

If the urinalysis shows nothing it probably would be safe to assume that they may not have been properly housebroken in the first place. Or something caused them to break their housetraining. Your husbands reaction to the damaged homes kind of suggests maybe they never were housetrained properly in the first place.

 

[veryfrustratedcatstepmom]

I agree, I am just stunned at the lack of responsibility and remorse. No crystals haven't been ruled out yet. I'll take them to the vet and have a urinalysis done as soon as possible. I'll also do some research on how to potty train older cats. I don't even know where to begin with that. Thank you so much for responding to my post.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi and welcome to TCS, despite the reason. Am I to understand that this has been going on for 5+ years?? Were they ever indoor/outdoor cats?

You haven't really said, how are these cats otherwise? Are they happy cats? Do they interact with the other cats and you? Do they ever use the litter boxes? If so, have you noticed any pattern going on in the home that correlates?

I think that it will be a long, long haul to try to retrain them. Anything going on this long has now become a habit, and we all know what is said about habits. It would be best to pick a room to call their own, and buy a large area rug that has a rubber backing to lay over the existing flooring. You could probably go cheaper with some sort of indoor/outdoor carpet cut to fit the area. This is just to help preserve what's underneath. I would also consider professional cleaning specifically for eradicating urine, as I do believe that while Nature's Miracle can mask the odors to human noses, it doesn't do the same for cats. To avoid further damage to the walls, which also need to be professionally cleaned, you can tape pee pads to them as well.

To start with I would get some low sided litter boxes and not put any litter in them - see if they will use them sans litter. Maybe even place some of their poop or urine soaked paper towels in them. You can also try the same but with puppy pee pads inside. If you know that they once did go outdoors, you can also try boxes with dirt/leaves/soil in them too. Short of actions like these, there is no real way to 'train' an adult cat to use a litter box. There are other progressing tactics to use once you find one of these successful as a starting point.

If nothing shows up with a urinary problem, this in part could be an emotional problem and you can ask the vet about trying anti-anxiety meds to see if that helps. Stress can do a lot to a cat, up to an including inappropriate litter box use.

 

[Alldara]

Some good information so far! Here's another resource as well with possible causes. Of course, we should consider "nature" as well. They are sisters and might have the same medical issues as well. Here's some causes: Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease (FLUTD) | International Cat Care