I am at my wit's end lately. I have two little tormenters who have made it their mission in life to never let me sleep.

Tormenter 1. Lola. Lola does everything in her power to get me out of bed several times a night to feed her wet food. My bed is on the floor, so the first thing she starts with is clawing at the box spring. She lays on the floor at one end of the bed and drags herself along the entire box by her claws. This often wakes me, but if that doesn't work, she jumps up onto the windowsill and attaches herself to the bamboo curtain, by the claws, and hangs from it about 3/4 of the way up. The other night, after neither of these evil plots worked, she jumped up on my bed, and peed on it. With ME in it. :pullhair:

So of course, the logical answer is to shut the bedroom door at night and not let her in. Enter tormenter 2. Regardless of which side of the shut door she is on, Abbey lays at the door, sticks her paw underneath and bangs the door for endless hours. I have let her run this course once, hoping she would quit. After two hours, I nearly lost my mind and gave in. In fact, last night, I slept on the couch because I wasn't sure what to do about Lola with the bed and all, so I shut the bedroom door. I put a cat carrier and a bed in front of it. Abbey spent the majority of her night trying to move the bed and is now banging the door and has been for about an hour or so.

I haven't got any idea what to do with them! I haven't had a decent night of sleep in MONTHS! Please help! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

The only thing I've read and heard and used is to ignore them. It may take a few nights, but you keep giving in and that's what they want. If you ignore them completely, no matter how much it drives you crazy, they'll realize they're not going to get your attention because you're sleeping.

I would also try giving them attention before bed - a good round of playing may wear them out.

I second Crystal and you may want to buy some earplugs.

Well that is actually what I did the other night with Lola. I let her play it out, didn't acknowledge that she had woken me, and that is when she peed on the bed. Maybe I will have to try keeping them out and ignoring Abbey's scratching. Its just that she is tearing up the carpet as well and I don't want to have to replace the carpets in this apt when we leave.

The ear plugs are a great idea when I am off the next day, but there isn't much chance of me waking up at 3am to my alarm with earplugs in :lmao:

Keep the ideas coming folks!!

Hmm, peeing when ignored? That's something I've never dealt with.

Yeah, me neither. Which is why I am so frustrated with the whole thing. Unless the peeing was unrelated? Maybe it happened for another reason???

Mel, my girls have been doing the same actually when Im sleeping. They will claw at the box spring and then run away when we tell them to stop and Lilly will walk all over me and bite my hands to get me up.....
If you did shut the door, then they would probally scratch at the door like Molly does.
Im not sure what to tell you. Maybe they miss you because your are working alot or not used to you working the 3am shifts, may have thrown them off and maybe when they wake u up, its their play time?

Well I shut them out last night and completely ignored Abbey. I set up the cat carrier and two laundry baskets with a cat bed inside of it in front of the door. Like this....



Notice Abbey is there, she wants in SO bad!

It was fine for a few hours, but eventually she managed to move the cat carrier out of the way. But I let her scratch it out. I ignored her completely. She didn't do it the entire night; she'd go for an hour or two and then give up for an hour or two. Anyway, around 7am, I got completely fed up, but I didn't let her in. I got up, and still shut the door and came and laid on the couch. She STILL banged and scratched at the door. I need to come up with a plan B because here is the mess she made just last night alone.

Yikes!!

And that's weird that she does it even when you're not in the room - what's bothering her?!

She's a spoiled brat that doesn't like to be restricted!! :rotfl:

BAD girls!! It's probably b/c of the move. Cats are such finicky creatures and don't like change so maybe they are still dealing with the move. :wha:

Its possible, but we have been here for six months. And Abbey always scratched at closed doors, ever since she was a small kitten.

OMG!!! :rotfl: I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't be laughing but Melanie... TOTALLY what I go through and have gone through forever with Tucker. Were they separated at birth or something? lol!

I especially laughed at the stuff in front of the door. Do you remember me saying we used to have to put huge bins, a tool box and a bin full of water in front of the bedroom doors before? :lol: Or the time we bought a privacy screen ($170 later! :pullhair: ) and bolted it into our walls so that we could close it at night to prevent him from going into the hallway and banging the door... only to find that he could JUMP OVER IT :pullhair: (it was 7 feet tall! LOL).

As for the mess she made :ack: : Bad girl! We have bits of carpet torn up in the corners near the bathroom door, our bedroom doors and the kitchen door. It's nuts.

Ahhhhh cats... gotta love them! :kittyluv:

WOW!!!
The peeing thing makes me think theres something else going on. Can cats pee at will? I know I cant.
The only other thing I would say is prop something against the door so it doesnt bang??
I sleep pretty soundly so I dont get woke up until its almost time for me to get up like 4 am. I almost dont need an alarm clock. :alarmwham:
I hope you find a solution soon. :hug:

Oh no Mel!! How frustrating! Our carpet looks like that by the music room door because we have to keep it closed so they don't get at the amps (Timm has a thing for scratching them). They've actually stopped trying to get in now, but it took a long time for them to stop doing it.

Have you tried talking to a vet? Maybe she's having some anxiety issues?

That's what I was just going to suggest - maybe a vet visit is needed. I'm wondering if there's something going on that maybe you don't see?

I suppose its possible. She has always had peeing issues, we have never been able to have a bath mat. Maybe I wasn't being quick enough with the litter box. I mean, I clean it everyday, but maybe she needs me to do it twice a day to keep her happy? She doesn't seem to have any anxiety issues, but I can't say that for sure, its not like I know whats going on inside her cute little head.

Nala refuses to use the litter box due to the anxiety from her kidney issues, the vet says. She pees and poops in the bathtub most of the time, which is fine with me because it's easy to clean. She also has a habit of peeing on our floor rugs in the bathroom, so end up washing and bleaching them once a week. She's never peed outside the box, minus when we were bring her home from the APL - she peed all over herself because she was nervous/scared.

So yeah, I'm wondering if it's a medical thing. Nala's kidneys are doing well and she's totally happy and healthy - but that's because we have her on fluids and supplements. When we adopted her she had her kidney issues (her last owner left her at the APL because she wouldn't pee in the box) but I never found out until I took her to the vet months later for peeing outside the box (at the time I wondered if it was a UTI).

So yeah...that's my perspective. :)

I'll start looking into vets on Monday when I have a day off. We don't have a vet in this city yet. :) But I do wonder if it could be something medical when its so rare that she pees outside the box? I mean, peeing on the duvet the other day, that was the first time she peed outside the box since long before we moved from our old apt. She peed on the duvet once before there, and that was more than a year ago.

Mel, I can recommend a vet to you in Clayton Park.. the one I took my girls too.. it was across the street from our old place... its Carnegy Animal Hospital and Dr. Carnegy is who we went to.. he is the veternarian thats always on Live at 5.A girl I went to school with is a tech there also.. just to let you know.. Its on Langbrae Dr.

Thanks Sonya!! :thumbsup:

I think that its territorial actually. I was thinking about it some more. When I am awake, Lola likes to sleep on my side of the bed. That is her spot. Last night, I got up at 430 to feed her, and when I came back to bed, she jumped right up in my face and was looking at me like, hello, you are in MY spot. Then she started acting odd and trying to squat, so I kicked her out of the room. Its unfair though, because to have Lola out of the room, I had to put Abbey in the cat carrier for a couple hours so I could get some sleep. Its not fair that Abbey gets punished because Lola can't behave. :pullhair:

Anywho. The LAST time she peed on our duvet, back in our old apt. This was when she was afraid of the duvet and never, ever set foot on the bed. One day, I was folding towels on the bed and she hopped up and laid down on one of the towels. So I started leaving a towel at the foot of the bed for her to sleep on. She slept there for days and days. Then one day, Abbey was asleep on it. Lola peed on it later that day.

That was Georgie's vet when we lived over that way. They were great!

Two good reviews! :jump:

I went to Vetopia (formerly Parrots to Ferrets) when I had to get some Revolution for them...its also in Clayton Park (Farminghamgate Rd I believe) and they seemed nice enough, but there were people waiting in the waiting room without their pets which made me wonder whether or not they let you in with your pets during exams? I didn't ask at the time, but now that you both have recommended this vet, I will have to check out the office for sure! :thumbsup:

Motley used to do the carpet thing! She's never liked having doors shut on her.
It was at it's worst when I had to move in with my parents for a while a few years back - Motley had to be shut in my room with me at night so she didn't set the burglar alarm off, and took to trying to tunnel under the door.

I came up with a novel solution - at the time I still had my pet rat Sid, and Motley was terrified of him! :giggle:

So when i went to bed at night I blocked off the door with his cage, and Motley wouldn't go near the door! :rotfl:

To avoid damage from scratching, I recommend SoftPaws, or other kind of claw covers.

As for making noises and being obnoxious, to keep them away from the door alltogether, I suggest a Ssscat device. My husband has a CPAP machine to help keep him breathing at night, and Yoshi used to get up on top of the machine to mess with the blinds behind it, and he'd end up turning the machine off. After just a couple of sprays, if they even see that canister, they will stay away.

Perhaps maybe a citrus scent sprayed in their favorite scratching areas will deter them? I hear that works...though my cats don't stay away for very long with this.

I saw Soft Paws for the very first time just a few weeks ago. We recently got a new Petcetera store and they had them. I will look into it. I am sure I could get them on Abbey, who is the real scratcher anyway, but doubtful that Lola would submit. But then I worry that Lola would pound the crap out of Abbey without her own claws for defense. They play fight quite a bit.

I've never seen that Scat spray...is it just a puff of air or a chemical? Is it in stores or only online? And does it spray people too or just cats?

According to the site, it is "a gas (HFC134a) that is 100% safe for people, animals and the environment. It has no active chemical agent, only an innocuous propellant. This scentless spray is stainless, ozone friendly and has no side effects."

I have had one for about 6 months now. I don't ever see or smell anything when it goes off, it seems like a shot of air that makes a startling hissing noise. We have set it off before; it's goes off whenever something passes within like 3 feet of the motion sensor.

I bought mine through Amazon.com, but I haven't looked for it in pet stores, so I'm not sure if it's available in stores. It is a bit cheaper on Amazon than on the main site.

I used to use the Ssscat spray cans to keep the cats away from the doors at night and the Christmas tree until Billy figured out how to tip them over, renduring them useless. :rolleyes:

There are two ways to use them: you can have it set so that a high-pitched warning goes off and then the spray, or you can just have the warning with no spray. Gradually, if the cats get used to hearing the warning... they associate it with the spray and stay away. Well, they're supposed to. When they're a smarty pants like Billy and they weasel up to it and knock it over, not so much. lol

We got ours at PetSmart, Mel.

wow, yours has a sound? mine only has the spray...

Yeah mine has the two settings... the warning beep and the spray.

We don't have PetSmart here but I'll check Petcetera.

Ok, so the first two nights Rob was home, the cats terrorized as usual. He said he thought I was exaggerating how badly they were behaving until he saw it for himself. But after that, and the entire time he was here, they were darling little angels.

Now that he is gone again, they are flippin terrors! Now I think they are behaving this way because he isn't here. I think the one time Lola peed was completely unrelated and probably because I forgot to scoop the litter that day.

I ignored them the best I could, but they still woke me at least 10 times. Ok, maybe 8, it was thunder and lightning here last night and I think that woke me twice :rotfl: Anyway, Abbey ended up spending a couple of hours in "time out" (cat carrier) because I just HAD to get some uninterrupted sleep. I feel awful doing that to her, but she doesn't quit. At least after five or six attempts, Lola gives up but Abbey just goes all night.

Hmm... Maybe some kind of separation anxiety? OCD? Or just anxiety? Sasha has annoying anxiety issues that come in the form of loud, obnoxious meowing for no reason. She's also OC with sudden aggressive grooming and chewing (she isn't chewing ON anything, she just starts making this random smacking/chewing noise). :coocoo:

Lola has now become the persistant cat and Abbey has left me alone. I don't even know anymore, I am starting to feel completely unhinged from lack of sleep. I barely get any anyway because of my working hours, and Lola waking me a few times a night doesn't help. I just spent the last hour in bed trying to ignore her and get some sleep but it didn't work. She doesn't even want to be fed, she just wants me up. She has left me alone completely ever since I came out to the computer.

I'm not even looking for advice anymore, I doubt there is anything that can be done. I just needed to vent.