Cat taken from mother too early with box issue

Seti was a stray I found (aren't they all) a year and a half ago. He was obviously taken from his mother too early and has some issues as a result. He used to try to nurse on me. Then he'd try to mate with my arm (GROSS!) and he generally acts a bit different from the other cats. In fact, he's the most unusual cat I've ever met and as a professional pet sitter for over 10 years I've met a LOT of cats.

Over the last year we've developed some issues with the litter box. He'll urinate in a few other places around the house. No health issues, he's good there and I'm taking all the usual steps to correct the problem and that's not really my question. My question is to others who have had cats who were also taken from their mothers too early. Did you find litter box issues with those cats? I'm hoping I can climb inside Seti's mind and figure out why he goes out of his box. I'm starting to think there may be a connection.

How early is too early by what you're going by? I've found kittens at 4 and 5 weeks that went on to have no problems at all (aside from the nursing issue and some bitting that is corrected earlier on).

Lots of people think they can take home kittens at 7-8 weeks. Obviously if this was a common problem with all or most cats taken away to early more people would have litter box issues.

Maybe it's something else you're missing?

Monster was an orphan. I had to bottle feed, wean, and litter train him. I have never had a problem with Monster and his litter habits. He has never, ever gone out of his box in his whole life. There was even one time when i went on vacation to Wildwood and i left the him at home with his cousin(this was before i had Mittens), and left specific instructions on how often to feed him, how much to feed him, and also to scoop the litter everyday. When i came home, i discovered she hadnt scoop the litter the whole time i was gone. Even then, he still hadnt gone out of the box AT ALL.

I never had that problem with kittens before.
I know people that bottlefed from day 1 and the kittens never acted that way.
My butterscotch wa 3.5 weeks when I got her.

Strange wings, I don't know how old he was when I found him. He wasn't bottle fed and could eat dry food but he was TINY! His first name was Smidgen. Also, I don't know how long he'd been on his own. I found him at a barn where I rode horses. The barn owner was feeding him but knows nothing about cats. A predator had tried to eat him as he had teeth marks on his back leg. We think the local fox brought him the long distance from the surrounding neighborhoods. He must have squirmed away. He's an unbelievable squirmer!

You're right, I must be missing something else. We've done all the normal stuff to correct the problem. I even got the Litter Robot to try to keep the litter as clean as possible. I think that's the issue, actually. I switched to crystals which also helped and with the exception of one spot seem to have gotten all his "places" scent free. Anyway, I still haven't tried Cat Attract so that's up next.

Seti is just the strangest cat I've ever known. There's no real way to know if that's his personality, his history or a combination of both. Since my experience with cats taken from mothers too early is limited I thought I'd check to see if there was a possible connection there. Looks like from what everyone here is saying it's probably not!

Thanks for your help guys. We'll get Mr. Seti straightened out soon. Thankfully, he's engaged with me and smart so I think we'll get it sorted out soon! We're almost there after all.