Reclaiming the quarantine room?

[Charley]

It's been 9 weeks now and I'd like to reclaim my office/guest room since we have some upcoming guests coming for a stay. I've not let anyone use the guest room and have made them sleep on air mattresses under my pole thus far.

Biz definitely thinks the room is his which is fine, I mean we merely pay the mortgage but it's really the cats' house anyway, hahaha. He still has a litter box up there because he was having some issues that have cleared up now. Before I move or change anything I wanted advice on how to do it. I don't want him to get upset or start using the carpet as his personal litter pan. We have the litter sitting on a piece of plywood so the smell wouldn't get into the carpet thinking ahead to the eventual move. He uses the downstairs litter fine but I'm a little worried about moving the upstairs one.

I've read two boxes per cat. We never did that Jengo was happy with his one box. Biz is the only one who uses his letterbox upstairs and I think it's because he can, do we need two boxes? I know of people who have two cats and one box and it works just fine. Just want to make sure I don't upset my master

I'm sure guest do not want to sleep next to a cat box, lol!

 

[WitchyWoman]

General rule of thumb is 1 more box than the number of cats. So 2 cats = 3 boxes. If Biz is used to going upstairs, you might consider relocating the litterbox to an upstairs bathroom or your bedroom for awhile -- at least a week until he gets used to the conversion of his quarantine room back into your office/spare room. Then you can move the 2nd box downstairs and see what happens.

As far as the number of boxes -- depends on the cat. Mine definitely prefer to pee in one box and poo in the other. I have 4 SVs and 5 boxes -- 4 are in the house and one is on their catio.

 

[Rafiki]

Rafiki and Jammu both use the same box, frequently at the same time. This was unexpected as we fully expected to need at least two. When Rafiki was first un-quarantined, we kept her box in the bedroom for at least 2-3 more weeks. Then we moved it to the hallway for another couple of weeks and kept slowly moving it until it joined Jammu's box in the laundry room. Once it was there, we kept both boxes for several weeks until it was very obvious that both cats were using just the one box and neither had issues.

 

[Carykd7kau]

When Merlin was still alive, Kilifi was released from her "jail". I kept her box in her quarantine room but she immediately began using the same one Merlin was using and never used hers again. When she goes into Azidi's room, she sniffs but has no desire to use Zidi's box.

 

[ambiente18]

I have 5 cats and 4 litterboxs, but usually they like to use 1 or 2...and I change the silicagel in the morning and evening

 

[Kristin]

I have 2 cats and 5 litter boxes...1 they don't use because it has a disgusting litter in it, but it is a mechanical one so its hard to dump.

When Thor was here we added one more litter box, plus his little one that was in his travel carrier (he stayed in that at night/when I wasn't home until he was like 8 weeks old)

We have a lot though because Tiger can't jump into Zeddie's big boxes, and Zeddie doesn't like feeling cramped in Tiger's litter boxes

 

[Patti]

I would do as Rafiki suggested, slowly move the box out of the room and relocate it someplace more acceptable. Maybe start by moving it just inside the door, then just outside the door, then down the hall, then just outside the door to where you want to ultimately relocate it (e.g., a bathroom), then just inside the door, then finally to its final resting place. I would space each move at least 2-3 days apart to make sure there is no rebellion over the change...

 

[Charley]

Just as we were preparing for the start of the move he knocked half the box over! Lol!

 

[Patti]

Naughty boy! Do you think he's trying to tell you something?!

 

[Charley]

Naughty boy! Do you think he's trying to tell you something?!

I hope he saying he doesn't need it anymore lol! He's starting to spend less time in that room and more time in our room. He seems to want to be wherever Jengo is