We recently sold our house and have moved into a condo. Our mostly outdoor cat has become strictly indoor. She doesn't use her litter box at all. She keeps going on our bath mats. She has never gone indoors before and my husband and I have become frustrated. I understand that moving may have been stressful, and I have tried everything to get her to use the box. I have also tried digging in the litter with her and she gets upset at me and attempts to run away. I even tried putting her in the bathroom for awhile so the box is the only thing she can use and now she will only go on the bath mats. She has been fixed and she is almost three years old. Please help!!

Poor thing. I'm sure she's feeling the stress.

Have you tried putting just regular dirt from outside in her litter box. Or possibly placing the bath mat in the litter box. It might be easier to transition into cat litter that way. Its going to be a slow process.

Just wanted to make sure that you are not using a litter box with a little door on it. I know when I moved, my two persians were upset too. They didn't want to use the litter box, and I had to keep them (against their will) in one of the bathrooms and leave the litter box open for easy access. I would remove any bath mats from the bathroom for now. Also, AW805s idea about some dirt in the box might help things out. Good luck! Blessings.

This is actually a common problem with cats. We love them for their haughty attitudes until something like this happens!
What you need to do is contact your vet a obtain a prescription for behavioral modification drugs which, like Prozac, your kitty will need to stay on for roughly 4-6 months, then taper off. In a nutshell, these drugs make them "forget" the offensive behavior. Nothing else will work. Hopefully, if the cat has been examined in the past 6 months, a phone call will get the meds. If not, an office visit will. Good luck!
P.S. the sooner the better so the new behavior is easier to rectify.

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Originally Posted by kittykat08

We recently sold our house and have moved into a condo. Our mostly outdoor cat has become strictly indoor. She doesn't use her litter box at all. She keeps going on our bath mats. She has never gone indoors before and my husband and I have become frustrated. I understand that moving may have been stressful, and I have tried everything to get her to use the box. I have also tried digging in the litter with her and she gets upset at me and attempts to run away. I even tried putting her in the bathroom for awhile so the box is the only thing she can use and now she will only go on the bath mats. She has been fixed and she is almost three years old. Please help!!!

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That funny! My cats do the same thing. They love to use the bath mat as a the litter box. I don't know why either. But I finally threw away the bath mats but then I would put a towel on the floor before taking a shower and the cat would pee on the towel. Finally I gave up and I threw away the mat mats, does use anything but the bare floor and my problem is SOLVED>! She uses the litter box now. Haven't had a problem since.

As far as the outside goes, my house was an outside cat and now an indoor cat. I solved my problem ( was given afvice and it WORKED! ) You need to open the curtains, pull up the blinds and open the window. My cats LOVES to sit in the window and breath the fresh air. She is happy as can be! As a matter of fact, every morning, at 7 am my cat wakes me up meowing and has me follow her to the living room. She will stand there meowing until I open the window. Then she jumped up and sits in the window all day long! Obvioulsy make sure you have secure screens in the window. Nice and tight.

UGH! First of all I'd like to slap MRSCOLTWEAVER! You don't give animals medication just because you don't like the way they behave, god forbid you have children!

Putting dirt in the litter box and removing any material from the floor is the best thing to do. Gradually, if you choose, you could introduce litter to the dirt in the box. If s/he continues to go on the floor, you may have to begin 'walking' her/him or you could always toilet train him. That takes a while though. Hopefully you've already resolved this issue. But I had to say something about the hypochondriac up there!

Vamp... This post is almost 6 months old. Hopefully the issue is resolved by now.
I understand that you are new to this site, but you really need to learn to disagree in a different manner. No one deserves to be smacked or threatened.