Well, That Was a Piss Poor Idea

I don't just put curse words in my blog titles because I love cursing. Which I do - it's fun for all ages! In this case the swear word in question is relevant to the topic at hand: pee. Cat pee, to be specific.

Remember when the hubby and I thought really, really hard about the best possible way to keep stray litter and that ever-so-pleasant litter box smell from overwhelming our house? Our solution was a cheap DIY project that solved all of our problems and then some.


Or so we thought. What we actually accomplished was a connected series of litter boxes. Who loves hiding their pee in tiny, cave-like places? Cats do! The fact that we didn't realize this sooner is hugely embarrassing.


Not long after we installed the litter box we discovered one or both of them were peeing in the vanity, right in front of the litter box. We couldn't figure out how to stop them, but we put down a plastic mat to protect the vanity cabinet. You see, my lovely husband has a stubborn streak and instead of giving up on the idea, he was GOING TO MAKE IT WORK, DAMMIT. So we forged ahead, determined to salvage the seemingly-awesome hidden litter box idea.

While cleaning the litter box last night the hubby noticed the smell was much worse than usual. Come to find out, the reason it smelled so bad - SO, SO BAD - was because the cats had also been peeing in the linen closet and the pee had SOAKED INTO OUR WOOD FLOORS. Which we now get to rip out and replace with something water-repellant pee-resistant. Just typing that makes me feel gross. The whole time he was cleaning up he kept muttering under his breath. I couldn't hear all of it, but what I could catch made a compelling argument that our next pet should be a dog.

As an added bonus, the linen closet got a complete organizational overhaul. Apparently the smell of cat urine is so strong that it permeates everything around it. In this case, in was wafting up the linen closet and made all my clean linens and towels smell like piss. So everything had to be removed, washed, folded and moved to another location. Now the no-longer-aptly-named linen closet only holds paper towels, toilet tissue, first aid supplies and other things that nobody will put their face on.

The current plan is to leave the cat door into the linen closet, block the tunnel between the closet and the vanity and place a plain litter tray on the floor of the closet. It will still contain the smell (somewhat) and the litter (somewhat) but at least they'll stop pissing on my damn floors. But yeah, cats are still awesome. Adopt a kitten today!