My family has had a cat (a stray one) for about a year and a half, and there have never been any problems until now.
Recently she decided to make some changes in her life and started to pee on a rug next to her litter box. She does use the litter box (which is clean) to pee and poop and just pees a little bit on the rug which is a meter away.
There were no changes in our lifestyle. She just made up her mind one day out of the blue.
She does not do that anywhere else in the house and just waits for us to put a clean rug to hop on it (usually when not supervised) and "mark" it.
I am not particularly interested in her philosophical reasons for this behavior but rather in a way to repel her from the rug. Are there any specific scents a cat does not like (bonus points if it is bearable for humans)?
I am aware of the great luck I have that she has chosen the bathroom rug as her secondary peeing target (and not a bed for instance) and that if I manage to move her away from the rug there might be a chance that she goes elsewhere, but I will try anyway (and divorce if this does not work; you guessed right, I am the one who lost the family vote when the cat was found :))