• Keep the litter box extremely clean. Scoop at least once a day and change the litter completely every four to five days. If you use scoopable litter, you may not need to change the litter as frequently. This will vary according to how many cats are in the household, how many litter boxes you have and how large the cats are that are using the box or boxes. A good guideline is that if you can smell the box, then you can be sure it's offensive to your cat as well.
• A good rule of thumb if you have multiple cats is to have one box more than the number of cats. That means if you have three cats, you should have 4 boxes.
• Add a new box in a different location than the old one and use a different type of litter in the new box. (Our vet suggested buying a brand new box so there would be absolutely no evidence of other cats and to try a brand of litter called Cat Attract & it worked!!!) Because your cat has decided that her old litter box is unpleasant, you'll want to make the new one different enough that she doesn't simply apply the old, negative associations to the new box.
• Make sure that the litter box isn't near an appliance that makes noise or in an area of the house that your cat doesn't frequent.
• If ambushing is a problem, try to create more than one exit from the litter box, so that if the "ambusher" is waiting by one area, your cat always has an escape route. It may even be preferable to keep the offending cat in a limited area of the house (a bathroom or laundry room) so they won’t be agitated and will have limit choices as far as where to eliminate.

All animals develop preferences for a particular surface on which they like to eliminate. These preferences may be established early in life, but they may also change overnight for reasons that we don’t always understand. Your cat may have a surface preference if: She consistently eliminates on a particular texture. For example, soft-textured surfaces, such as carpet, bedding or clothing, or slick-textured surfaces, such as tile, cement, bathtubs or sinks. She frequently scratches on this same texture after elimination, even if she eliminates in the litter box. She is or was previously an outdoor cat and prefers to eliminate on grass or soil.

What You Can Do

• If your cat is eliminating on soft surfaces, try using a high-quality, scoopable litter and put a soft rug under the litter box.
• If your cat is eliminating on slick, smooth surfaces, try putting just a very thin layer of litter at one end of the box, leaving the other end bare, and put the box on a hard floor.
• If your cat has a history of being outdoors, add some soil or sod to the litter box.
• Make the area where she has been eliminating aversive to her by covering it with an upside-down carpet runner or aluminum foil, or by placing citrus-scented cotton balls over the area.

Your cat may have a location preference if:

• She always eliminates in quiet, protected places, such as under a desk downstairs or in a closet.
• She eliminates in an area where the litter box was previously kept or where there are urine odors.
• She eliminates on a different level of the house from where the litter box is located.

• Put at least one litter box on every level of your house.
• Make the area where she has been eliminating aversive to her by covering it with upside-down carpet runner or aluminum foil, or by placing citrus-scented cotton balls over the area.
• Put a litter box in the location where your cat has been eliminating. When she has consistently used this box for at least one month, you may gradually move it to a more convenient location at a rate of an inch per day.

If you catch your cat in the act of eliminating in the house, do something to interrupt her like making a startling noise, but be careful not to scare her. Immediately take her to where the litter box is located and set her on the floor. If she wanders over to the litter box, wait and praise her after she eliminates in the box. If she takes off in another direction, she may want privacy, so watch from afar until she goes back to the litter box and eliminates, then praise her when she does.

Don’t ever punish your cat for eliminating outside of the litter box. If you find a soiled area, it’s too late to administer a correction. Do nothing but clean it up. Rubbing your cat’s nose in it, taking her to the spot and scolding her, or any other type of punishment, will only make her afraid of you or afraid to eliminate in your presence. Animals don’t understand punishment after the fact, even if it’s only seconds later. Cats don’t seem to understand it at all. Ultimately, punishment will do more harm than good. Praise during elimination in the proper place is helpful, however. Don’t be loud because that will seem aggressive and scary. Try not to use words with “s” or “sh” sounds either because that sounds like “hissing” to a cat. You should, however, use a soothing, sweet sounding voice while telling her she’s a good girl, “good potty”, whatever you’d like.

Other Types of House-Soiling Problems

• Marking/Spraying: Some pets may go to the extreme of urinating or defecating to mark a particular area as their own. Urine marking is not a house-soiling problem, but is a territorial behavior. Therefore, to resolve the problem, you need to address the underlying reason for your pet’s need to mark his territory in this way.
• Fears or Phobias: When animals become frightened, they may lose control of their bladder and/or bowels. If your cat is afraid of loud noises, strangers or other animals, she may house soil when she is exposed to these stimuli.