Moved house, cat urinating on sofa

[Fusss]

Recently moved house, about 2 weeks in our new place now and our 2 year old cat has started weeing on the sofa regularly.

She's been using the litter tray absolutely fine in the first two weeks and seemed really settled. She has been spayed.

There seems no signs of any ill health, eating well, healthy firm stools. Can this be put down to some adjustment and stress due to new surroundings?

Its the same sofa we had before, she never used to do it at the old house.

Any recommendations on a product or home remedy we can spray on the sofa to put her off doing it any more?

Getting a bit bored of stripping the sofa covers to go in the washing machine every few days!!

[Tyrell Corp]

'Problem' I suspect is the cat needs to mark it's territory, they are much more territorial than dogs.

Solution I hope as the cat settles in might just sort itself out quite quickly.

Try to be extra nice, whilst at the same time making it clear that pissing on furniture not acceptable.

I've had lots of cats, one stray was doing this in my garage - now he knows he is adopted by me he doesn't bother anymore.

Perhaps even skip the washing covers temporarily and see if it stops the cycle.

Think like a cat here.

Edited by Tyrell Corp on Monday 25th September 14:04

[C5_Steve]

It sounds behavioural rather than medical, which is both a good and bad thing I guess!

One of our cats can be very fussy for no reason about her litter tray, where by she'll refuse to go in, wander about meowing and if not caught will pee on the bed. Not frequently but it's happened about once a year once we realised what she was doing. The thing is she'll only do it if my partner is in, if it's just me she'll go straight in her litter box even if the other cat has used it. We've learned to watch for signs of her being a madam and shut the bedroom door and watch her until she goes but it can be very annoying.

This stuff works well for cleaning/discouraging:

https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/simple-sol...

[CopperBolt]

Maybe a stress response? I used to have these plugins for my mog.

Being a stingy B*st I had 'em on a 24 hour timer, hour on then hour off to make 'em last longer.

[Chubbyross]

I had exactly this with our two moggies. We had a stressful house move - lots of removal people clomping up and down stairs for three days - and the cats hid for two days in the new house, refusing to come out from their hiding places. Eventually they emerged and promptly started to pee on the sofa every few days. Very stinky! After about two weeks of this we finally let them out the house to explore their new surroundings and the indoor peeing stopped.

It doesn’t say in your post whether these will be house cats or if they’ll be going outside but the peeing should settle down once they’ve acclimatised. Moving house is incredibly stressful for humans but more so for cats. They like their territory and peace and quiet, and these things have just been severely disrupted. Give them a chance to settle in, maybe cover the sofa with old blankets and give them plenty of peace to get used to their new surroundings.

You have my sympathy. The smell of cat pee is virtually impossible to shift. Despite being scrubbed and scrubbed with every possible specialist cat pee cleaner the smell is still detectable on our sofa.

[tixoc]

Have you tried beating it?

[EmilA]

I found the Feliway spray and plugin help us with our kitten, he was doing the same and when we started to use this on the sofa and our bed he stopped doing it.

[Vsix and Vtec]

Assert dominance, urinate on the cat.

[Fusss]

tixoc said:

Have you tried beating it?

Alright Kurt Zouma


Thanks for the replies guys.

Picked up a bottle of the pets at home spray recommended.

Sofa fully washed last night, sprayed all over with that product, no episodes last night.

Will see how it goes.

[Chubbyross]

Vsix and Vtec said:

Assert dominance, urinate on the cat.

That can only escalate. You’d be flinging poo at each other before the week is out.