About to Tell My Husband - Me or the Cats. HELP!

I agree with other posters, you need to keep them confined to a small room with just their food water litter and cat tree. This may take a long time but that I think may train them. We got a cat recently from the shelter and she was originally found on the street and mangy. She spent a lot of time at the shelter getting well (at least 2 months) and she knows what to scratch on, where to go potty and is a darn good kitty cat. I can only attribute this to the fact the ONLY things she had to use to go potty and scratch in the room she lived in for so long where the things she should use. All the best! This just seems unbearable!

I don't think I can be of much help since it seems like he's willing to do what it takes doing the cleaning and stuff. As a lot of men would say forget it. You might try to watch I think it's the Cat Whisperer on TLC you might even be able to watch it online but that might give you some ideas of things to do to help.

I don't understand why you can't just keep them out of the bedroom. I have a chihuahua who for the love of GOD will not stop peeing/pooping in the bedrooms, so we installed a baby gate in the hallway to keep him out of all of the bedrooms. Problem solved.

Honestly, why is this all on him? I'm assuming you both got the cats together. You don't get to give him an ultimatum. This is a marriage, a family. Believe you me, if my husband gave me an ultimatum about my annoying, hyper-anxious, allergy-ridden, loud-snoring, hard-headed boston terrier, I'd give him a piece of my mind. IMO, that's just not an option.

I can understand getting rid of the cats. But it has to be a decision you BOTH come to, AFTER, and ONLY after, you have exhausted every other option.

It's very, very important to remove all of the urine odor from the home in order to re-litter train the cats. You're going to have to scour the floors and wherever the walls were splashed, and likely replace/remove the carpets and scour the floors underneath.

Homemade Urine Cleaner:

Equal parts White Vinegar and Water to soak the area that had urine on it, whether it's an old dried up spot or recently wiped up spot. Let it soak in to carpet or sit on concrete; spray on the wall area; wherever there's pet urine. Let it really get in there and then blot it up with paper towel as much as you can or soak it up with one of those clean machines like a SpotBot.

Then sprinkle a pile of baking soda on top of the damp area where you just lifted the vinegar solution.

In a spray bottle, mix a cup of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide with a teaspoon of liquid dish detergent that you would wash dishes by hand with. Spray that onto the baking soda pile or drizzle it. Spray it onto walls. Basically, make a paste.

Scrub that paste into the area with a toothbrush and really work it in. Let it dry. After it dries, vacuum it up. Scrape up stubborn pieces if you have to. The stink should be gone, and your cats shouldn't be able to smell it either.

The only urine smell they smell should be in their litter boxes, so that "should" be the only place they urinate.

EDIT: I do have two cats and we live in a house where the previous owners had cats who urinated and defecated in the basement, so guess what our cats do? :-)

EDIT AGAIN: Cats don't actually have "sensitive" stomachs. What they have is an intolerance to the fillers that are used in cheap kibble and the acidity in the gravies of wet foods. They need kibble that doesn't list corn meal as the first ingredient. They need kibble that lists real meat and has other healthy ingredients. They also need to have wet food once or twice a week to make sure that they're not getting dried clumps of dry food causing blockages in their digestive tracts.

They also need to have their fur brushed regularly to avoid swallowing so much that they're vomiting up hairballs. In addition, you don't have to give them hairball remedy or special diet for hairballs, but put dabs of Vaseline on their paws once a week (which is the exact same thing in the hairball remedies on the shelf that you pay $6 for a small tube for) and it helps the hairballs glide out the back end instead of being vomited up the front end.

Sorry, I'm a classic cat lady, so no ammo here.

Also, if they've concluded that it's okay to pee on your carpet, you probably need to get a new carpet -- or just go with hardwood, which is classy, elegant, and about a million times easier to clean.

Or, you can just keep your bedroom door closed at all times. If a cat sneaks in, gently eject cat. A baby door wouldn't work for a healthy cat, but a regular door, closed all the way, would.

In other words, sorry, but in my book, if it's a conflict between a carpet and a living creature, living creature wins every time.

Our two indoor cats (7&8years old) recently started peeing on rugs etc. in the house and so we secured the fence in the backyard so they could not go under and moved them outside. It was a slow transition process, getting them used to the sounds and smells of outside but now they are 100% outside kitties and I love it! They also seem happier outside with bugs to chase and grass/dirt to pee on. You can start by getting the fence as secure as possible so they do not wander off before they are ready, then start putting them outside for an hour or so a day, then leave them out there longer and move a litter box out there, keep going at this gradual pace until they are outside all the time. Problem solved!! Hubby can visit his kitties outside and you can have a pee/vomit/litterbox free home! Good luck

keep them out of the bedroom.
lock them in one room while you're gone.

when you replace the carpet, you'll need to clean the subfloor, then sand, and then paint with a fire remediation primer. and maybe, maybe they won't pee on that floor again. so you're looking at a week or more out of your bedroom to get rid of the odor and hopefully prevent the issue - not sure I'd be willing to spend a week on the floor and not get rid of the cats....

ask your vet for a behaviorist. if he's really insistent on keeping them, you'll have to fork over the money and the time to retrain.

I like the idea of crate training - it works great for dogs.

but like many below, an animal is not a child (although very close) and the people in the family have to come first. and there comes a point where you just can't afford it anymore either.

I'd lay out exactly how much you're going to spend to fix the problem and retrain, compare to your annual budget, put it on paper and then talk to your husband again.

my sympathies. good luck.

Call the my cat from hell guy on Animal Planet?

really tough issue. i'm a cat lady so totally get the perspective that animals are not disposable, and having committed to them, one must take that commitment very seriously.
however, it sounds as if you've been trying hard, and your issues are really awfully huge. and your cat-loving husband is also trying hard, and doing the responsible thing by taking over the clean-up duties for HIS cats.
that being said, i think there are a couple of more steps you can try before you toss them or him to the curb. for starters, contain them in a single area of the house unless or until you are able to completely and utterly get every single vestige of urine odor out of the rest of the house (challenging because the cats can smell stuff we can't. it might be fine to us but they still detect it.) having cats in their own room is not ideal by any means, but preferable to having your bedroom smell like a litter box.
the sensitive stomach issue is a bear. just regular peeing problems is bad enough, but diarrhea and vomiting everywhere? even my cat-loving self would be struggling with that, as it seems as if this is chronic and cannot be expected to go away.
if you keep them in a single room (or as the folks who sold us this house did, built a huge walk-in cat cage in the basement) you can also include big scratching posts so your furniture is spared and they can still shred. love you for not declawing yours even in the midst of all your woes.
of course you lose the companionship and pleasure of having a nice cat purring on your lap while you watch 'iron chef.' but these poor guys just don't appear to be *that* sort.
again, i don't say this lightly. i really have no use for people who casually take in animals and casually get rid of them again when they prove to be difficult and/or expensive. but sometimes things just don't work out. pets are family to a large degree, but they're not actually kids. i was fortunate to manage to re-home an older cat whom i adored, but who began peeing incessantly when i brought my first baby home. i absolutely could not deal with the thought of my precious baby learning to crawl on peed-on flooring, so found a great cat lady who took her. but that cat lady is a rare breed. and most older and problem cats won't find anybody.
i know many will judge me harshly for this, and i get it. but if i had a problem animal with whom i could not live, and for whom i could not find that one in a million great home, i would accept the karmic hit and euthanize. i think it's better for a domestic animal to go peacefully, in the arms of its human, than to be thrust into an uncertain and probably unhappy fate. i know it's an unpopular stance. but it's an option in a case that's untenable, and you are pretty close to being there.
good luck! i'm sure hoping for a happy ending here!
khairete
S.

I agree with the other posters to put the cats in one room of the house, with their food, water, litter, cat toys, and maybe an old couch that they can trash if they want to. If you can't do that, then use doors to keep the cats out of any place that you don't want them to go (carpeted rooms, rooms with furniture you don't want them to mess up, etc). And put tile or hardwood or similar down for that room, and your bedroom.

Or, if it were me, since they are not declawed, I would seriously consider making them outdoor cats or indoor/outdoor cats.

You mentioned having them to the vets.... and that the vet said the mother didn't teach them to use the litter box... None of cats I know had their mother teach them to use the litter box--the humans in their lives did. If your cats have ever had a urinary tract infection (and if you haven't had a vet check, you should), they may need to be trained or retrained to use the litter box. UTIs in cats are very painful (they can also get kidney stones) and if the cat has pain when it pees in the box, then the cat (who's not as smart as a person) thinks that the box is causing the pain, and starts to avoid using it and goes elsewhere. There are lots of good articles out there on retraining a cat to use the box.

I don't blame you for being frustrated--old, concentrated cat pee is an awful smell to try to get out of a house, especially once it soaks into the floor boards. But if you can't find a way to solve these behavior problems in a way you can live with---please consider euthanizing them humanely, because its very very very likely anyone is going to want to adopt these cats with serious behavior problems and finding a shelter that will take them for the rest of their lives (4 to 10 years) is going to pretty problematic.

Is there any way to relegate them to a specific area of the house, or at least ban them from your bedroom since that seems to be their main issue? Get the carpet professionally cleaned, buy yourself new bedding and then keep the door closed. I get that they may LIKE your room, or your husband may enjoy snuggling them, but it's that or they have to find a new home, at this point, right?

Side note, we have two cats (same litter, mama was wild kittens were rescued and adopted out). They are super sweet, but one of them is basically mentally retarded. She got really overwhelmed when we moved into a bigger house and she wouldn't always go downstairs to her kitty box when needed. Anyway... now she is crate trained (weird for a cat, I know). If we aren't home and awake, she is in her crate. When we take her out of the crate, we take her straight to the littler box and have her go potty. Same thing before she gets in the crate. She has had zero accidents since we started this about 4 months ago, and actually LIKES her crate so is often in there with the door open. Neither cat is allowed in the bedrooms upstairs, so they just hang out on the main level and in the basement and they are very happy.

Hope this helps.

T.

I have to agree with some of the other posters. Why are the cats even allowed in the bedroom if they're going to pee and puke in there? We have pukey cats, so I can identify with that, but ours will use the litterbox.

Can you keep them outside? I would try all other options first, but if you can't reach a tenable position with them inside the house, since they're not declawed, send them out! Most cats I know (that are outdoor cats, anyway) love to be outdoor cats. Lots of freedom that indoor cats don't get. Then they can pee and puke to their heart's content... but not in your house.

Do you have a safe outdoor area such as a screened in porch that you could banish them to?

My current cat was a stray before it picked me. And my husband is not a pet person. The cat comes inside to eat or sit on my lap but the rest of the time it is outside. It feels safer outside(no loud stompy jumpy people around) and my husband feels better when it's not inside unattended, possibly leaving fur in our bed. For the first couple of years, it didn't know how to use a litterbox. It would just ask to go outside. After we had some visiting kittens, then it finally figured it out. If it misses the litterbox, it's usually because it's sick. It scratches the carpet on the stairs, but I think it wants me to chase it.

I'll sympathize with you. I don't have any good advice being a dog person. Animal behaviorist? Gating off areas? Closing doors? Creating a cat only zone/room? I am a self confessed animal lover but I put my foot down over a dog we adopted. She would not potty train despite Herculean efforts and I had enough. Our home is not a toilet. Period. My sanity is not worth any animal. Also a full stop statement. I'm sorry pets are not kids. Close but not quite. When you have legitimately given it your all, then it's time to re-evaluate the situation. For us we contacted the rescue group and returned the dog. Peace and balance was restored in our home. My mothers had a cat that went everywhere - furniture, floors, tub, sinks, wherever. It was disgusting. They would cordon off one area so the cat found another area. Repeat around the entire house until it was unbearable to go over there. My mother despised that cat and resented my other mother for inflicting that dang cat on her for years. With their new cat my mother insisted on a huge cat house (three levels, litter box, takes up half a small room) in the house. When the cat is unsupervised (at night or when they leave), she is put in her little area. Good luck and many well wishes on a peaceful solution.

First, do not put a tarp down on your bed like another poster suggested. Cats are attracted to plastic, which smells similar to them to kitty litter, and are more likely to pee on that than ever.

Next, accept that if you give these cats away, it might as well be a death sentence. Most people won't put up with a new pet that pees all over - it is one of the leading reasons cats end up in shelters, and very few adult cats make it back out of shelters.

I recommend that you call the Cats International Behavioral Helpline. This is the website: http://www.catsinternational.org/contact/index.html
I used them with my cat, and they really helped until my cat began having some health issues. It is also a free service, although donations are welcome.

Now that my cat cannot control her bladder anymore, she lives in a spare room with no carpets. Is it a pain? Yes. Do I hate it? Yes. But I don't personally see another choice.

Good luck.

Dr. Elsley's Cat Attract Cat Litter.
No cat will refuse it. 100% guaranteed or your money back.

For starters, can you just keep them out of your bedroom? Close and, if needed, lock it when you aren't in there. I don't have any pets, and would never get a cat, so I don't have any more tips, but why are they in your room in the first place?

oh goodness! i am not a pet person at all! Dogs i can handle, but cats... no thanks! good lord i can only imagine what your house smells like bc my daughter went to stay the night at her GF house for a bday slumber party and the first thing you smelled when you walked in was cat pee and poop! and then when three cats came up to welcome us, that validated it.
wow. well.. i dont know what you could do. i mean, Queenofthecastle does have a point, shut your bedroom door, but that would probably mean they would start vomiting and peeing somewhere else in the house. we had a cat when my daughter was 7 bc she wanted one so bad, so we got her a kitty, the little bugger started peeing on our clothes and even provisions in our house... like a chair floatie that goes in the pool. After a few months of trying to train her correctly to go potty in the litter box she still didnt use it correctly, so i said SHE HAD TO GO! Luckily for us when she pee'd on the clothes we could just throw them away, good thing it was not our carpet .... Yeah, not real sure how to handle that. I would just demand your DH the cats need to go! Honestly, that is gross! Good luck!

I second what the other poster said, cats can have UTIs or kidney stones, which makes them pee at random times/places. Your vet should be able to check this out. One of our cats is on a special cat food to keep his body from forming kidney stones.
The throwing up usually happens when cats have hairballs. There is a Science Diet cat food formulated to eliminate hairballs - that might be worth a try? It really worked with our cats before we had to switch to the kidney stone food... :-(
Good luck! Nothing smells worse than cat pee in carpet on a hot summer day...

As far as the comforter on the bed goes, can you just get one of those plastic tarp liner things that people put on the ground under a tent when camping? Just lay that over your bed when you get up in the mornings.
#1 The cats will not want to be on that.
#2 If they do get on it, and throw up, you can (or hubby can) just wipe the stuff off, spray with cleaner, wipe, done.

I'm with you sister, those cats would be history. I would never, never, never tolerate an animal repeatedly urinating and vomiting on places that I sleep and walk.

Gross, gross, gross as this is how terrible, nasty viruses get spread from animals to humans.

Can you at least lock them in a small room of the house with their litter pans and claw towers to force the start of the re-training process. Make them to use just one spot of the house?

GL! Sorry I have no ammo...just utter disbelief that a guy is OK living like that and his wife is not. And his tolerance trumps yours. Not OK IMHO...

Your hubby must really love cats! If my husband had to clean up cat messes on the bed and floor daily, he would have given them away long ago!

It's going to be hard to give them away, if you're honest about their problems.

Can you put them in a large cage when you leave for the day?

Hmmm. those pets sound like pains...

I had two cats. I loved them and they were great companions. When my husband and I got together, we moved into a house with a doggie door and the cats started to enjoy being able to go outside any time they wanted.

No more litter problems!

Then, after a year, one cat disappeared. A year later, the other cat disappeared.

No more cat problems.