Cat spraying indoors- please help!

[Tronk]

Our lovely neutered Tom cats have started spraying in the house. We have two males and one female, all spayed/neutered at earliest possible age as recommended by vet. One Tom is 6, one is 4. I'm pretty sure it's because there's been trouble with a neighbouring cat getting in. We've changed the cat flap for a microchip one to eliminate intruders, got a Feliway diffuser, had them checked by the vet...what else can I do? OH has banned them from all but one room of the house 😞. It doesn't help that we've got the builders in so routines disrupted. Any ideas greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[Tronk]

Anyone?

 

[Meowy Catkin]

We have a very bad brown cat who sprays indoors. He knows that he's not allowed, so if you catch him lining himself up and say 'oi' he just pees faster... little sod. He's also on diuretics which of course means that he has lots of pee available. *sigh*

Builders would upset him and cause him to pee more, but I would expect him to reduce back to normal naughtyness once they had gone.

We have a dirt tray (covered type) which he likes and is placed in his favourite spraying spot. He can go in there and spray and spray, it all stays in the tray. We keep the cats in the kitchen at night (it has a flap) and as soon as he wakes in the morning we pop him outside, so that he can spray out there (he's not allowed back in for a few mins). This routine works well, but you still have to keep an eye on him especially if its raining and he doesn't fancy getting wet.

 

[Tronk]

Thanks Faracat. Our cats can go in and out as they please. Hopefully when builders have gone they'll all calm down.

 

[JillA]

They are now overmarking existing scents, so your first step has to be to remove all traces of those old smells. Biological washing powders (patch test on fabrics) and proprietary biological sprays. I recently saw a post that is your cat is missing, out their litter tray outside because they can smell it up to a mile away - that is how sensitive their sense of smell is.
Once you have eradicated all smells, try and restrict access to those particular places so they don't get into the habit of over marking again although the stimulus has probably gone if you have excluded the intruders (clean up the area round the cat flap in case intruder smells linger there).
I heard of one for whom the stimulus was a pair of wellies worn where the intruder cat frequented so bear in mind that they are territory marking in defence of their home

 

[teacups]

Once they've started it can be very difficult to stop, because the scent is there as described above.

This website has lots of helpful factsheets about cat health and behaviour/problems: here is the one about urine spraying:
https://icatcare.org/advice/problem-behaviour/urine-spraying-cats

HTH

 

[HappyHollyDays]

Spraying inside is nearly always a stress related reaction sometimes because your own cats aren't getting on or from an intruder and often difficult to stop. Wash everywhere that has been sprayed on with a mixture of bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar to get rid of the smell of ammonia. Feliway doesn't always work and I've had better results with valerian root. Stinks but the cats love it, alternatively try cat mint as it chills most cats beyond recognition and often difuses the situation.

Hope you get it sorted as unhappy cats are a nightmare.

 

[Equi]

The builders might be upsetting them, but one thing the cat man on the telly box says is to make sure there are enough litter trays. one for each cat and a spare!