my kitty will only go to the bathroom outside..help!

We adopted a beautiful, kind, three year old cat in December. She'd been living outside but has made our home hers. At first, I had her litter box on our lanai (we live in Florida) and she'd use it but would prefer to "go" outside. Once the weather became very hot I moved her box indoors (in our laundry room and then I moved it to a back unused bedroom) and she's refused to use it. She'll stand at the door and meow until let outside.

We are heading out of town in a week and I have asked neighbors to check in on her, but I need her to start using her box as no one is here to let her out on demand.

Any suggestions?

If the cat is confined to indoors, she will eventually have to go, and will do so, though where that ends up (at this point) is ???, but that's something you'll have to work on. I do suggest using only a shallow amount of litter for now, in a not-high uncovered box (on a carpet remnant or newspaper, etc. for now to catch scratched up litter), and mix in some bagged soil on the top to attract her (and maybe use Cat Attract Litter for starting out at least). If she's introduced to the box properly (just 'walk' her front legs a couple of times from behind, in the box, so she gets it) she hopefully will eventually use it (and you can phase out the soil).

why don't you put one right by the door that she wants to go out of? Even fill it with soil from outside or if there is somewhere in particular that she is going, like grass or mulch. If you see her go outside, pick it up (assuming it is poop) and put it in the box.

then you can slowly move the box to the location you want it to be at.

I took in a pregnant stray who was an outside cat and had to immediately become an inside cat (we couldn't let her out since she was almost full term). We had this same problem....she just wouldn't use the litter box and would find other places to go (sofa, piles of laundry, etc). Here's what finally worked:

We filled her litter box with soil covered in woodchips (she was used to going outside in the woodchips....but just duplicate whatever medium your cat is going in outside). We also put some of her poop from outside in the box.

After a few days of her using that, we gradually removed the woodchips, leaving only the soil.

Then we put a layer of litter in the box covered with soil. Then we gradually removed the soil layer leaving only the litter.

After about a week, she was using the litterbox consistently and has never had a relapse.

Good luck!