So we have four cats, two of them are 14 years old and the other two are 4 years old. All have been fixed. We have 6 litter boxes in our garage and a cat door in the sliding glass door so they can go to their boxes freely. One of my younger ones has taken to unfortunately using the mulch in the only outdoor area we have on our property, which is a townhome. Before that, we had large decorative stones, about the size of large marbles to ping pong balls, and he’d dig those up and poop in them as well. I have absolutely no idea why and it’s incredibly frustrating as well as absolutely disgusting. I’ve tried EVERYTHING! I clean the litter frequently, I have sprayed the mulch with peppermint oil, lemon juice and apple cider vinegar to deter him from the smell and finally I decided to cover the mulch with old sheets….well the as$h0le decided that it would be cool to just poop on top of the sheet! I don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve thought about outdoor cat deterrent spray but theres mixed reviews about its efficacy saying the cat didn’t care or it attracted the cat even more, as well as some people say it smells really, really bad. I’ve also thought about lava rock but can’t afford to fill it all in, plus I don’t think it would work because we had decorative large pebbles out the before and he even dug those up and pooped in them. We have a three year old who likes to run around out there and play with the mulch as well so I don’t want her getting poop on her hands and inevitably in her mouth. I’m at my wits end and I know I’ll get flamed, but I’m honestly thinking of rehoming him to someone I can trust. I would never put him in a shelter or pound. Does anyone have any suggestions? I’m willing to try anything at this point.