Overly concerned about covering his business

My 1 year old cat seems to have this problems where he tries to cover his poop WAY too much. I have never seen anything like it, he won't cover it with sand but will go get newspapers and cover it with that. And spend like 5 minutes doing this. And claw the wall. I suspect it might have to do with the fact he lived on the streets for months. I understand that cats in the wild HAVE to cover their poop for fear of being found out. Unless they are the dominant cat which I doubt he was. Is that the problem? It's not a big deal-but it does mean the box gets full of stuff after one use and I am constantly cleaning it or he won't have room to use it again. I don't really care except i do wonder how he will do when I go on vacation for 5 days in a few months. I mean I was hoping to get a few extra litter boxes and then have my neighbor only have to clean them once while i am gone. But now i am wondering if I will need to take him to a Kennel. And I wonder if I can eleviate his anxiety in this matter at all.

Hmm...I have a cat that used to cover her poop until she could no longer smell it. I also have one named Mia who does the same as yours, she will drag anything she can find into the litter box, including clothing or blankets, she also covers her food dish with paper, and when she had babies she covered them with an empty box....She never lived on the streets she was dropped off at the vet so we took her and her brother. I thought maybe she was just being protective of anything hers, but we have other cats so I don't really know why your baby is doing it!

Thanks, I can't fully figure it out. And why he won't cover it with the sand? I even put his paws in the sand and pushed it over it so he would see but no go! BUT he will fuss with the paper and the plastic liner til the cows come home.

Hmm, it could also be that he may not like that type of litter? We decided to use crystal litter one time and they wouldn't cover it at all, they would stand on the edge of the box to go to the bathroom...who knows?!?! I guess we won't ever fully understand cats!

LOL! Sorry to laugh but the visual is pretty funny. With my guys I have never seen this type of behavoir in any of them. I would just get a big piece of astroturf to put under the litter pan and clear the room of anything that the cat can use to cover its waste and see if that works. You can just take the astroturf outside and shake it about twice a week to get rid of the loose grains of litter.