Cat relieving herself indoors - desperate for advice

[Hannah]

We have a fourteen-year old cat that we inherited from my mother-in-law 5 years ago.  She started off using a litter box and then we taught her to relieve herself in the garden.  She is a large cat, but squeezes herself through the cat-flap.

Winter temperatures at night are sub-zero and she started to relieve herself (both urinating and defecating) behind the couch in the living room - thankfully on tiles.  During the day she went outside, but now she does this during the day as well.  Day temperatures are between 15 and 25 degrees Celcius (59-77 F). We have put down a litter-box, but she does not use it at all.  She does her business right next to it!  

How can we fix this?

[itsheresomewhere]

She needs a vet visit asap.  Any changes in potty habits, needs a vet visit. 

[Hannah]

2 minutes ago, itsheresomewhere said:

She needs a vet visit asap.  Any changes in potty habits, needs a vet visit. 

I'll schedule one right away.

[regentrude]

Vet to rule out uti.

Then different box, perhaps she needs easier entrance and the sides are too high if she has arthritis. Or different litter. Experiment.

I feel for you, my old one had a stretch like that, peed next to the box on the floor.

Search for that thread, folks gave lots of advice

 

[Katy]

Our ragdoll started doing that when going into kidney failure. We had a few more weeks of accidents then his back legs failed and he had to put him down. 

[Shelydon]

I would put a litter box in the house. I recently had to add two extra litter boxes for my elderly cat. 

[Hannah]

7 minutes ago, Shelydon said:

I would put a litter box in the house. I recently had to add two extra litter boxes for my elderly cat. 

There is one in the house right next to where she's relieving herself, but I'll go and get some more with different types of litter.

[J-rap]

Try covering the areas where she's relieving herself with odd shaped items so she can't use those spaces anymore.  We tried that with our cat and eventually he was kind of forced to use his litter box because it was the the only easy space.  That and cleaning out the litter often, trying different types of litter, etc.  

[LaughingCat]

I had to go with disposable litter boxes for one cat -- he was SUPER picky about the smell of the box (also the litter but thankfully he liked regular clumping litter -- he just didn't like any of the ones that were supposed to cut down on smell).  The ones I used also have low sides for easy entry. (these ones on amazon)

Edited July 7, 2022 by LaughingCat
changed link to actual ones I used

[happi duck]

I hope the vet was able to see kitty today!

[Hannah]

11 hours ago, happi duck said:

I hope the vet was able to see kitty today!

We have an appointment for 5pm this afternoon. 8h30 here now.

[Clarita]

If all else fails puppy pads work for our cat (kind of) well at least now she pees on the puppy pad next to the litter box if she hasn't messed it up. (Just saying if all else fails.)

Yes our vet knows this. 

Yes the cat can get into the litter box. (She goes in the litter box for poos. And I got her a specialty litter box where one side is lower.)

We have tried many different types of litter. 

We've placed litter boxes in what seems like preferred spots.

We've used the calming cat spray, room diffuser.  

We clean the litter box daily. We tried cleaning the litter box after every pee/poo (it didn't help so I'm not going to continue that).

We've tried feeding her treats in the area where she is peeing that we don't want her to. 

We have resorted to placing puppy pads all around the litter boxes with bricks on top to keep her from messing up the puppy pads. I call her my high maintenance cat because I also have to brush her teeth every evening.