Sudden behavior change: my kitty refuses to leave the bedroom

I have 5 cats, a mother and her four 2-year-old male sons.

Last week, my air conditioner went out, so for the first time since the kittens were born, I turned on the ceiling fan, and it freaked them all out (except for the mother) for a while, they all ran and hid for a few hours. Eventually they seemed to get over it. Jellybean, in fact, was probably the first to come out of hiding, and he seemed OK.

On Wednesday I left for a 2-day business trip (I'm usually gone a couple of days a week, this is nothing new and has been the case their whole lives. I always leave them plenty of food and water and make sure their litter boxes are clean before I leave.) When I came back, I noticed a lot of Jellybean's black hair (he is the only black cat, and the only one with medium-length hair, the others are all shorthairs) on the bed, and he was on the bed and didn't come out to greet me when I came in.This is unusual, because of all the cats, Jellybean spends the least amount of time by far in the bedroom. He almost always sleeps in some other part of the house, and rarely comes in to the bedroom just to hang out. The presence of all the hair on the bed made it seem like he'd been on the bed the entire time I was gone.

He now refuses to come out of the bedroom at all. If I pick him up and carry him out, he runs right back in (I have no door on my bedroom). I put out some fresh food when I got back, and usually just the sound of me opening cans brings him running to the kitchen, but not this time He is a big fat boy and loves his food, so this is a huge behavior change and a huge concern. I picked him up and carried him all the way to the kitchen, and he completely freaked out, howling loudly and crying in my arms and when I put him down he ran straight back to the bedroom and hid under the bed (note: the ceiling fan was not on, and there was nothing different in any way about the kitchen or dining room). I brought him some food to the bedroom, and he ate it up quick, so there is no loss of appetite. I tried to lure him out with his favorite freeze-dried fish treats, another thing that always brings him running, again with no luck.

This morning he pooped on the suitcase I keep on the bedroom floor, rather than leave the room and use the litter box...another huge concern because Jellybean has always been my litter box champ. He's always seemed to love using the litter box, and when I pour in new litter, he always wants to be the first one to "christen" it.

Other than this, he seems OK, health-wise.No nasal discharge, no sneezing or coughing or drooling. Maybe a bit more lethargic than usual, though being a big boy, he has never been quite as energetic as his brothers...plus, it's hard to be energetic when you're keeping yourself confined in a relatively small bedroom.

Has anybody else ever experienced anything like this? I'm not sure if I should give him more time to recover from whatever it was that changed his behavior, or if more time will only cement this as the new normal for him. Should I stop bringing him food to the bedroom, and hope that hunger will eventually bring him out, or will he just starve himself? He has never been a particularly fearful cat prior to this, so I am worried.

Help!

i suggest a vet visit and urine analysis to make sure he doesnt have a urinary infection. if he is in pain he wont want to leave the bed. 

The fact that he pooped in a different location is telling you something is wrong. of course tomorrow is sunday. do you have a regular vet you can email and ask questions? you want to be sure he is drinking enough water.

other than that did someone come over when you were gone and scare him? Or maybe his unknown illness is making him more jumpy than usual?

Thanks for your quick reply!

They came to fix the air conditioning on Wednesday before I left, and the presence of unknown people always scares the young ones a little, but they come out of hiding soon after the people leave. They may have come back to finish the job while I was gone (supposedly they were only going to work on the roof to fix it, but they may have let themselves in to double check that it was working). Still, I can't imagine him being this freaked out for this long over that...his brother Francesco maybe, but not Jellybean.

We do have a 24-hour,7 days a week vet here in town I could take him to. I don't like to use them much because a) it's about a 20 minute drive away,and they all hate car rides so that will freak him out even more, b) it's a bit of a madhouse on weekends with a lot of dogs, and c) they're just not that good in terms of customer service and they're not as caring as our regular vet. Still I suppose I'd better take him there, it beats worrying to death.

Thanks again!

ezwriter said:

Thanks for your quick reply!

They came to fix the air conditioning on Wednesday before I left, and the presence of unknown people always scares the young ones a little, but they come out of hiding soon after the people leave. They may have come back to finish the job while I was gone (supposedly they were only going to work on the roof to fix it, but they may have let themselves in to double check that it was working). Still, I can't imagine him being this freaked out for this long over that...his brother Francesco maybe, but not Jellybean.

We do have a 24-hour,7 days a week vet here in town I could take him to. I don't like to use them much because a) it's about a 20 minute drive away,and they all hate car rides so that will freak him out even more, b) it's a bit of a madhouse on weekends with a lot of dogs, and c) they're just not that good in terms of customer service and they're not as caring as our regular vet. Still I suppose I'd better take him there, it beats worrying to death.

Thanks again!

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I'd wait another day and take him to your usual vet. One more day won't do anything. I wonder what he'll do if you switch the ceiling fan on again.

Yes, I decided to wait and took him in to our regular vet this morning. She said he was very healthy overall, but we are waiting results from the tests they ran.

Meanwhile, nothing has changed, he's still refusing to leave the bedroom. I brought a litter box into the room, so hopefully that will stop hiim from pooping and peeing elsewhere.

If it turns out theat there's nothing physically wrong with him, Im going to put the door back on my bedroom and just put him out and see what happens.

This all is really weird and totally unexpected.

It is likely that the sound of men working on the roof scared him.  My cats hated it when I got a new roof put on. They just moved to rooms where the roof was not being worked on, only to be driven back into the other room when the men moved to that section.  It took them a couple of days to calm down and stop being jumpy, and I was even here to tell them everything was fine.  They could see I was calm during that terrible racket.  The fact that this was going on when you were not home to reassure him is probably the problem.  If I were you, I would NOT just close the door and lock him out of the bedroom as that would be stressful to him.  Instead, try carrying him around in the other rooms and talking calmly to him as you do.  See if you can see one particular place he finds more stressful than another and just keep reassuring him that everything is fine.  After that, try putting his food bowl just a little ways outside the bedroom door, so he will have to go out a little to get it.  When more time passes with no noises on the roof, he should get over it.  The litter box in the bedroom is a good idea for the time being.  One should always have one more litter box than one has cats, and they should be in different places, not all grouped together.

Thank you for responding!

I got the lab tests back today, and everything appears normal. There are apparently no underlying health issues, so that is a huge relief.

Regarding the roof thing, I live on the ground floor of a 3-story apartment, so that can't be what scared him.

I'm thinking it just has to be the combination of the ceiling fan thing (it's in the dining room, and the dining room/kitchen is where he seems to be the most freaked out), plus having the maintenance people in the house (even though they were only inside very briefly, and I've had strangers inside before). Maybe the two things happening in succession was a little too much for him to handle. Weird, because like I say, he's not one of my more skittish/fearful cats. If someone had told me 2 weeks ago, "one of your cats is going to suddenly park his butt in the bedroom and not come out, even to eat", he would not have been one of the ones I would have suspected. He just loves eating too much.

I have been trying to coax him out, I've been doing as you say and taking him out of the room and talking reassuringly to him, but no matter what he just runs right back in the room.

I'm not fond of the idea of him living out the rest of his life confined to one room...for his sake as much as mine. I hate the idea of having to keep a litter box and food and water  in my bedroom, but if that's what I have to do, I will do it gladly for him. The main thing is that I don't want him to lead such a limited life. He's always enjoyed a little supervised outdoor time, he's been curious about other creatures that wander by, and he loved to sit in the shade of a bush and smell the leaves.I would usually find him near a window, staring at the outside world. I hate to think of him missing out on all those things he enjoyed.

In light of what you just said, then perhaps the workmen DID come back in to check the air conditioner and the cat was thereand freaked out and ran to the safety of the bedroom.  It does seem that the ceiling fan would not be as scary as strangers in the house, but you never know.  He will get bored of staying in the bedroom eventually.  Just be patient.

I was going to say what Red Top Rescue said. He'll see the others playing etc and get bored and come out eventually.

Thanks for your responses.

The vet also recommended I try some Comfort Zone, which is some sort of cat pheromonal stress reliever/calming agent, so I'm going to buy some of that and see if it helps.

It's strange how this whole thing with Jellybean has completely altered the vibe of the cat family. They are not play-fighting at all, they all seem to be eating a little less and seem to be very subdued, the mama cat is acting saltier than usual, and they're mostly avoiding the bedroom where Jellybean is. I don't know if they're sensing his stress, my stress over his stress, or both.

My Jellybean, on his new home, aka my bed.

Poor jellybean.