Cat Chat Feline Forum

All,
My 5-month old kitten is very well behaved and toilet trained, except she pees immediately any time we change the bedsheets.

We've ruled out a lot of possible causes:
- She's been checked for a UTI
- Her litter tray is clean
- Tried Feliway spray and plugin
- It's not spraying, it's a full, sit-down pee
- It's happened about 10 times now, and never anywhere else
- Tried disciplining her (she know's she's in trouble after doing it!)

She uses her litter tray without fail, and has never peed on bedsheets that are a day or two old. She regularly sleeps on our bed without problems, it's only when the sheets are fresh. She has also never peed on fresh or dirty laundry, or (interestingly) the soiled sheets once we've removed them and put them next to the washing machine.

It seems to be quite a strong compulsion for her, as it's usually immediate. As soon as she gets into the room, she'll hop up onto the bed and let rip without delay.
Crucially, she'll do it multiple times in a short space of time if we change the sheets (she got through three sets in a matter of hours recently), which suggests it's not just a comfy place to pee, but she feels like she has to.

Our vet suggested that it might be ammonia in the laundry detergent, but I've been unable to find any reference to this on Google.

So, any ideas? We could, of course, lock her out the bedroom every time we change the sheets, but I'd rather tackle the problem directly. She's also so well behaved that I'm sure it must be an unusual stimulus.

Cats are often attracted back to an area they have soiled as they can still smell the ammonia. From memory I think bio is more likely to destroy the smell so I'd suggest washing your bedsheets and also the the quilt if you have one anyway. If she's managed to soil on the mattress there are products when are meant to help remove the scent, I used to wipe surfaces over with surgical spirit which is meant to help.

Does she tend to sleep on your laps?. If not, maybe she doesn't like the scent of the bedding when it's clean and wants to put her scent on it. You could try changing to another brand or perhaps using slightly less.

Hi,
I don't understand the topic, can someone tell me about it? I want to get some Fresh bedsheets.
Thank you.