My cat might not be using the litter box

[lil96]

Ok my boyfriend thinks my cat(dale) could be urinating outside the litter box. I haven'T actually seen her do it and I have seen her use the litter box in that time since this has been happening. So i am just not sure if it is her or not(or maybe I am in Denial?) but she "seems"(I will post another topic regarding this) healthy and I know cats hide their sickness really well. But here are a few factors: this is the set up of the room; along the wall is the dryer, the washer then a cabinet which holds the litter box, then a smale space (maybe 9" wide on the floor and an old bathtub over it (ya know the ones with the feet) this is where the wetness sometimes is and then various old pipes one is for he radiator overflow. anyway this room stays fairly damp and everynow and then a damp spot shows up small then gets bigger then I clean it with bleach and it will dry up for the day then come back (am I in denial?) but one of the spots comes from under the washer, not behind the washer, but under and yesterday my bf pulled the washer out to see where the leak comes from but there was no leak, but also yesterday was a very dry day. I worry we live in an old house and maybe just moisture leaking through the foundation. Ok so I wil pretend like it is her, take her to the vet and then how do I know if it is her or not? like if it keeps happenig? bc maybe, if it is her she just likes that spot better and always wants to go there?? But i thought that I could clean it off then put double sided tape on the spots, bc cats hate sticky stuff and she wouldn'T want to walk there and then it would stay dry proving it was her, but then what if she decides to go somewhere else! Arrghhh I hate this!I hope this makes sense?Thanks for reading!

[lil96]

so does anyone knw a way to check and really know if it is her or just a leak?

[deb2950]

did you smell the spot? If you are using bleach on the spot, if it is urine you will know it by the fizzing rection when the bleach hits the ammonia. This is rather dangerous because you should really never mix bleach and ammonia because of the resulting fumes. Also can't you tell whether or not she is using the litter box by it's contents?



I edited this after I reread your post and noticed you were using bleach to clean the spot. I almost killed myself once when my dog urinated in the basement and I unthinkingly poured bleach directly on the area, the resulting fumes almost knocked me out.

[lynnhaz]

that is really interesting...i did not know that mixing the two could result in a problem. thanks for the info

[lil96]

she is still using the litter box. yea that is what I thought about mixing the two and it fizzes but not always. Ok my basement in WWII was sort of a bomb shelter (I live in Germany) and so I think that when they(humans) had to stay down there for a long time they had to go to the bathroom there too, i don'T know this for a fact though. But since I moved in we have remodeled one room and cleaned out the other two which had been just accumuulating junk since the war. So it sat and sat forever but we did all this stuff before my cat moved here and I cleaned up the smells, the smell reminded of when as a kid I would go to the slave houses on plantations very musty mildewy smell if anyone has ever been in one of those. Anyway I don'T know if my cat is smelling the previous human urine smells or if the is old stuff beng brought up because we are changing so much. this is an old house and maybe the walls leak. Because it doesn'T always fizz only sometimes. I really don'T think it is my cat but my bf says it definitely is. I think on Monday or tues. I scruubed the floor with bleach and it still looks wet, but normally bleach dries very quick and turns the floor white (this is just a concrete floor)so I can'T tell if it is humidity in there or what?? sorry this is so long but it just drives me crazybc he says it is definitely her but it doesn'T always fizz is my defense!

[deb2950]

my next suggestion would be move her out of that room for a couple of days and see if the wet spots still appear.

[lil96]

that is what I was thinking about this morning but then I thought about how cats like consstency and what if she doesn't like to go in the new spot. arrg why can'T cats urine and other stuff just magically disapear!!