So I've dug around a bunch of different sites for advice on this, and found a closed old thread here that helped a little but in the end didn't do the trick. So I figured I'd mention the problem here and see if anyone had any advice!
I have two lovely cats, one 3, one 11. The 3 came to us as a kitten and rarely ever peed outside the litter box (only did so out of stress like as we were leaving/when we got home from trips, that kind of thing) so she was good. The cat we got we got at 9 because he was SUPER stressed out due to his family having kids and he was peeing all over their house. So we kind of figured he might pee some with us, and at first he did a lot, but over time we tried new litter, several boxes, things like that, and he got a lot better.
We recently moved into a new older house, and at first we had the litter boxes in two places, one in a kitchen and one in a bedroom. No real issues besides the older cat occasionally peeing in a pile of clothes or something, but that was rare. We later decided, at my wife's request, to move one of the litter boxes to the basement to get it out of the bedroom. The cats loved having access to the basement all of a sudden and again, all seemed well.
Eventually I started noticing pee spots on the wall in the basement. I cleaned them best I could when they happened, but they got more frequent, mostly in one spot. So I did something that now feels like it was wrong and I brought the second litter box downstairs (so all on one floor, the basement) and put it in the other area the cats were peeing. This helped for maybe a week, but then they started peeing all over that one wall and around the litter boxes (both), which was something they never did before. I cleaned up like mad, tried vinegar, tried tin foil, tried bleach, and nothing has worked (I think it has been even worse after the bleach, they seem like they pretty much only use the litter box to poop now...which obviously isn't good).
So starting right now, I moved both boxes back to the spots they were in when we first moved in and closed the basement. Drasticish change I know, but I need to at least clean the basement again and they've been good about using these spots in the past and in recent history when I moved them there temporarily to clean the basement.
So I have a few questions:
1. Does anyone know a real good enzyme type thing for getting pee smell out of basement floors? Nothing I've tried so far seems to work too well and I'm looking for something that will. Stains are okay as long as they don't smell!
2. Does anyone have any other ideas for getting cats not to go to certain areas? We tried citrus, the cats didn't mind it. We tried tin foil and they just peed right on top of it. Neither of my cats really is detracted by normal cat things, so I'm trying to think of other ways to deter them that I haven't heard of yet. I even tried putting up obstacles along the one basement wall so they couldn't pee. They either peed on the obstacles (a good foot or two away from the wall) or, in the case of one shelving unit, crawled under the shelving just to pee on the wall more.
I guess that's it for now. I also currently clean each litter box every night but I will now do twice a day as my cats are definitely picky. But as I said they haven't peed like at all in the boxes lately, so I'm curious how the basement closed will work.
I have two lovely cats, one 3, one 11. The 3 came to us as a kitten and rarely ever peed outside the litter box (only did so out of stress like as we were leaving/when we got home from trips, that kind of thing) so she was good. The cat we got we got at 9 because he was SUPER stressed out due to his family having kids and he was peeing all over their house. So we kind of figured he might pee some with us, and at first he did a lot, but over time we tried new litter, several boxes, things like that, and he got a lot better.
We recently moved into a new older house, and at first we had the litter boxes in two places, one in a kitchen and one in a bedroom. No real issues besides the older cat occasionally peeing in a pile of clothes or something, but that was rare. We later decided, at my wife's request, to move one of the litter boxes to the basement to get it out of the bedroom. The cats loved having access to the basement all of a sudden and again, all seemed well.
Eventually I started noticing pee spots on the wall in the basement. I cleaned them best I could when they happened, but they got more frequent, mostly in one spot. So I did something that now feels like it was wrong and I brought the second litter box downstairs (so all on one floor, the basement) and put it in the other area the cats were peeing. This helped for maybe a week, but then they started peeing all over that one wall and around the litter boxes (both), which was something they never did before. I cleaned up like mad, tried vinegar, tried tin foil, tried bleach, and nothing has worked (I think it has been even worse after the bleach, they seem like they pretty much only use the litter box to poop now...which obviously isn't good).
So starting right now, I moved both boxes back to the spots they were in when we first moved in and closed the basement. Drasticish change I know, but I need to at least clean the basement again and they've been good about using these spots in the past and in recent history when I moved them there temporarily to clean the basement.
So I have a few questions:
1. Does anyone know a real good enzyme type thing for getting pee smell out of basement floors? Nothing I've tried so far seems to work too well and I'm looking for something that will. Stains are okay as long as they don't smell!
2. Does anyone have any other ideas for getting cats not to go to certain areas? We tried citrus, the cats didn't mind it. We tried tin foil and they just peed right on top of it. Neither of my cats really is detracted by normal cat things, so I'm trying to think of other ways to deter them that I haven't heard of yet. I even tried putting up obstacles along the one basement wall so they couldn't pee. They either peed on the obstacles (a good foot or two away from the wall) or, in the case of one shelving unit, crawled under the shelving just to pee on the wall more.
I guess that's it for now. I also currently clean each litter box every night but I will now do twice a day as my cats are definitely picky. But as I said they haven't peed like at all in the boxes lately, so I'm curious how the basement closed will work.