kitten pee - we're getting desperate

Our healthy (and recently checked for a UTI) and neutered 8 month old kitten is destroying our home. We've gone through gallons of nature's miracle. I follow natures miracle with a steamcleaner (yes we bought one). We have an entire buffet of litterboxes with different litters, and we keep them clean. We have feliway plugins. We've used aversion spray and citrus. We've even replaced the floors in a couple of rooms. But if we block off one area, he uses another; if we block off all used areas he starts a new one.

The thing is, we believe he's a good boy. Each time we've added a new litterbox in a new room he's been very excited and eager to perform for an audience. He tries to lure us into the room with the new box and even if he just performed for my husband and can now only squeeze out a few drops he shows off for me. He is eager for praise afterward. He is clearly stressed out about the situation - I can tell by his expression when he sees me cleaning.

We've realized that our adolescent male cannot share a litter box with our older females. We initially thought the conflict was with granny cat, so we got a very tall box that her arthritic knees keep her out of. But the problem was actually with the neurotic princess. The cat he cannot share with is probably the lowest ranking female I've ever met. She seems to get along with him ok, at least as far as we can see. And we try to keep her away from his box. But we can't keep them 100% locked away from each other, and sooner or later she claims his box. Once she's used it, he apparently can't use it any more. He follows us over to his previously favorite box and hunches down looking at it, but if we put him in he leaps out.

Finding a new home is NOT an option for any of our cats because we are an adoptive family. Our children are young and cannot receive the message that if someone in our family misbehaves he might be given away. We have to solve this. We are getting desperate. Please help if you can.

Thanks, but please believe me when I say that the vet has ruled out a UTI. Granny cat is a Manx, so we are quite familiar with UTIs, including culturing for low level infections that linger below the detection threshhold.

Anti-icky-poo is our other cleaner. It works ok and we sometimes alternate them but we seem to have more success with NM. We can try Nok-Out as well, but I don't think he is peeing in spots he's been tempted back to. There's a couple of spots no longer blocked off that I think he's forgotten about.

He'd clearly rather use the litterbox than the floor - he is so enthusiastic about a new litterbox. We just can't set up a new one every day. There is one tall one with a hole in the top (though we had to remove the top) that princess cat wouldn't go in at first, and it solved the problem for 5 days. And for those 5 days he did his "follow me!" dance to lure us into the bathroom so we could watch. He was so proud. And on the 6th day all he would do is crouch nearby, and if we put him in he leapt out immediately. That box now belongs to the princess.

We haven't bothered with the Cat Attract because as far as we can tell he's been equally happy with every brand of litter we've offered, Feline Pine, a couple of different clumping types, crystal, etc. Actually he looked vaguely displeased about the crystal, but he did use it.

Litterboxes are located in the garage (3 or 4 in there since we threw away a couple of old ones), laundry room, and the kids' bathroom. Mostly a clumping litter they all seem to like, but one with feline pine.

Yep, that seems to be what is going on. It wasn't an issue at first; when he was a baby he was allowed to use the boxes. My theory is that as he is growing into a big male - and he is going to be a big one - he will inevitably become dominant to her. He has a dominant personality, and she is kind of pathetic - she couldn't outrank a catnip mouse. So I think she sees the threat approaching and she is fighting back to maintain her superior status.

I'll try the cat attract - it can't hurt. If there's a chance it might help persuade him to use "her" box despite her objection it's worth a try.

We don't live in a large house; the only place where there is physically room to keep two or more boxes in the same room is the garage. So the laundry room and bathrooms have one apiece.

Interestingly, last night my husband brought a bucket of litter - we are using several, but this one happens to be a scented clumping litter that I personally hate - into the bathroom in order to clean the box that used to be his but now belongs to princess. Kitten followed to watch this interesting activity as usual, and as soon as he opened the bucket kitten jumped in and peed. The bucket is too cramped to let him bury his waste - he can't move to dig - but we left the fresh litter container in there to use if that's what he wants. Maybe he's desperate enough to accept cramped quarters but princess is not.