3 Young Cats 1 House Pooping Outside Litterbox

Hey everyone!  I'm new here!

I'm looking for some advice in regards to my new living situation.  A week ago I moved in with my two friends into a 3 bedroom home.  My baby girl. Quinn, is almost 5 months old.  Their 2 baby boys are about a week or two younger.  They are getting neutered tomorrow and have started spraying a bit the last few days.  My girl will be getting neutered at the end of the month and hasn't shown any signs of being in season yet. 

At first things were fine, the cats integrated quickly (they met each other when they were younger) and the cats were eating and using the liter box fine.  

As of the last couple of days we've been finding poop in a corner in the living room.  One roommate has seen the boys clawing at the carpet in the corner.  I don't think it is my female, as I saw her poop in the litter box tonight.  We have an electric auto clean once an hour type box.  It is located in the garage (we have a cat door to the garage which is used storage only and the big door never opens).  One issue I could see is that the food is right by the box.  The box has no top.

Also, one of the males, who we suspect is one of the corner poopers, peed on my bed today (I caught him in the act).  He is also the resident trouble maker of the bunch.

Also some of the poop times seemed to occur when my door was closed and my cat could not come in.  That being said, I would often "lock" her into my vanity room/bathroom in my last place, and no accidents happened.  Also worth noting, her food and box were about 10 ft away at my last place.

I'm a bit confused mostly because for the first few days, everything was fine.  Is it just the babies coming into "adulthood" or is it something else?

Right now I'm looking at putting the food and box on opposite sides of the garage and adding an odor eliminating wall flower from Bath & Body Works, most likely scented linen.  The idea being to lessen the poop smell to make eating and pooping in the same room more okay for the kitties.

Ideas and advice are super welcome.  We are all first time solo cat owners as we all haven't had cats since we were with our parents.  We are all in our 20's.

Definitely move the food to the other side of the room!  I don't think you need to add any scented air fresheners to a good size room.  I have heard they may not be good for any of us as well.  

Make sure you use a good enzyme cleaner where the cats have sprayed and pooped.  If they can smell it (even if we cannot!) they may be attracted back to that area. 

Cat introductions are something we usually recommend to take very slowly over the course of a few weeks or even months (some cats need that long to adjust).   Also it is best to have one litter box per cat, plus one.  A reason for the pooping may just be too many cats for the one box.  I was able to use just one litter maid box for my 2 (litter mates) for years.  Our box broke so we now have 2 standard litter boxes.  My DH noticed almost immediately that they were using one to pee and the other to poop.  This is also very common and a reason we find cats going in inappropriate places.  Perhaps since there are 3 of you; you can rotate litter box duties.  

Those are my thoughts on why  you may be having some of these problems.  Here are a few articles you might find useful as well:

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/litterbox-problems-in-cats-the-ultimate-guide

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/introducing-cats-to-cats

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/9563/inappropriate-peeing-problems-answered

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/19767/inappropriate-poop-problems-answered

I hope that all helps!  Good luck with everything and don't hesitate to come back with more questions! 

Update! Thanks mooch! The food has been moved but we had another poop. The boys were getting fixed and it was my cat who did it. Turns out she's an angry pooper. I thought about it and all the times it happened I had locked her out of my room for bad behavior or getting tired of the cats running in and out playing with eachother. Since then I've made sure to make my room avcessible. If the door has to be closed I have her in it with me. No poop since. One of the males, even after being neutered, has continued to pee in the house. We will be adding an extra box to see it that fixes the issue.