A year of cat pee...I don't know what to do anymore :(

Hi guys!

I've read through all the Pee Threads I could find--they're super informative, but I've tried most of the solutions suggested and nothing has really had a permanent effect. We just moved into a brand new apartment and I really want to get a handle on this once and for all--I'm so frustrated, exhausted, tired, and worried about my cat. People have started suggesting we give her away/put her down and it kills me to think it's gotten that bad. (I'd NEVER put her down. I probably would never give her away either, but I'd like to not be miserable for the next 15 years of her life.)

My three year-old female has been doing this for the last year. I rescued her along with her brother when they were 8 weeks old. Both are spayed/neutered and there were NO issues with this up until last September. The male cat has no problem with peeing outside the litterbox, I don't think he's ever done it once in his life.

We took her to the vet when this first started and they couldn't find any infection. I thought maybe it was because it was an old apartment and it smelled like other cats. She is peeing, not spraying. She doesn't pee exclusively OUTside of the box, but she does it a lot. This only happens on carpets, with the exception of when we started putting plastic sheeting over the places she peed so that she wouldn't saturate the carpet any further (they were COMPLETELY ruined by the time we moved out--no amount of steam cleaning or enzyme cleaner ever worked).

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night to the horribly familiar sound of her pawing at the carpet, which she does when she's just peed on it. This is our BRAND NEW apartment, where we are the first and only people to live there. She had two, sparkling clean litterboxes to choose from, in two different rooms.

We've tried feliway, we've tried citrus sprays. We've tried corn, newspaper, clay litter. We've tried covered and uncovered boxes. We've tried multiple boxes in different rooms. Multiple boxes in the same room. She always seeks out a new corner to pee in.

Are there other health issues that could cause this that wouldn't be detectable? Is it possible she peed so much in the old place because it DID smell like other cats, and now the habit is so ingrained she's forgotten how to use the box? How do we "re-program" her?

Thanks so much for any help you can offer. I'm sure people here can understand how much our cat means to us and how awful it is to have to deal with our property being destroyed again and again...we just want to finally end this, for her sake as well as ours.

RAFM-

This is a great idea! I thought about this before but I didn't think a cat would be interested in the puppy pads (since they have some kind of attractant I thought only a dog would care about). It's a relief to hear someone went through almost the exact same thing--even down to a super clean cat sibling.

aprilyim-

Thank you! I'll definitely look into something like that to see how it works. We've put covered boxes in corners/closets before, and she uses them, but she also uses the carpet. She is an equal opportunity urinator, haha.

Definitely going to get some Cat Attract. We tried using it in the past but she'd already saturated the carpet with urine in so many places it was really hard to get her to stop going back to her old spots.

Now that we're in a new place I'm going to quarantine her in the bathroom with her brother so she has no choice but to use the box (since she doesn't seem to like peeing on tile/wood).

Thanks so much for all your help! I feel a lot more hopeful now about getting this to stop. I went home at lunch to check on them and when I opened the door she was in the litter box!