My cat can't stop peeing on the door

Question

I have two cats, a boy, and a girl, the boy was first and so alone in the apartment he looked bored, so we brought him company and got a cute calico cat from a shelter, he absolutely loves her but since that moment he started peeing on the entrance door of my apartment.

He can be a day or two without peeing but eventually, he will pee (and a big pool of pee), I have tried a lot of things to make him stop peeing but my efforts can't resist his needs of peeing on the door and my neighbors started complaining.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Answer 1

My guess is simply that he started marking his territory.

Usually male cats start doing that when they become sexually mature. Their pee starts smelling really strongly and it's the cat's natural instinct to apply their personal smell to vertical surfaces like walls or trees.

In most cases, neutering the cat (surgically removing the testicles) reduces the instinct to mark. But once the cat started marking, there is no guarantee that he will stop again, even after being neutered. At least the smell of the pee should become less strong after neutering.

If your cat is already neutered, then the stress of having a new cat in his home could have caused his marking. You write "he looked bored" but most cats are very lazy and like lying around all day.

Another possibility is that your cat has some UTI (urinary tract infection) or urinary stones. Male cats are very prone to them and they cause him pain while peeing. Since he cannot tell you with words that peeing is painful, he tries to show you in his own way. You should get him (and his urine) checked by a vet.

Answer 2

I think Elmy provided a great answer, I got the same issue a year ago and wanted to tell my journey to provide some additional tips that might help you and others who are having the same problem.

I went to the vet with my cat and apparently, she had bladder stones. It hurt to pee for her, so she tried it in other spots, mainly at the door. We treated for the bladder stones, but that was not enough, she now had kind of a bad relationship with the litterbox, so we had to switch to other litter. We switched to litter that was easier on her paws (we had pellets, so we switched to small clumping litter) and was especially made to smell attractive to her (so not a lavender scented one that is made to smell good for humans, but one that is meant to smell good for cats). And we placed a litterbox near the door for a while until she learned to go in the litter box again (not fun for us, but it was for the greater good). It was a whole process, but now she never pees outside of the litterbox again.

Providing a litterbox near the spot where you don't want them to pee on the floor is always a great first step to quickly fix the problem until you found the root cause.

Also make sure to buy a product to neutralize the pee, because otherwise it leaves residue you can't see with the naked eye. But make sure not to use bleach because this smells like another cat to them and they would just pee more in that spot to give it their smell again. (my vet also gave the hint to clean the litterboxes with bleach for the same reason).