The number one trigger is the presence of outside cats who come up to the house.  Sensitive or overly territorial indoor cats spray or pee outside the box as an attempt to protect their home from the intruders.  Our indoor cats see, hear, and SMELL the urine of outdoor cats.  Many of those uninvited cats are spraying your front door on the outside!  This causes the indoor cat to retaliate.

Let’s take this one step further – literally – we are going to talk about your shoes!

When we walk our city streets we step on all sort of gross things. We’ll spare you the the tummy turning examples, but you can certainly imagine what you’ve walked on. Ths would include cat urine or flakes of feces. YUCK!

If you wear those same shoes in the house you are bringing the those threatening scents into the house, and spreading it everywhere you walk.

Here’s something you can do for the sanity of your cats, and to keep your home sparkling clean and free of disease – regularly clean the soles of your shoes.

Its easy! A basin of soapy water and an old tooth brush, plus a towel for drying is all you need. For really soiled shoes soak them in a 1/8 to 1/4 inch of soapy water to loosen the crud, then finish with your old toothbrush.

You might have all household members wear only slippers in the house, and keep shoes by the front door like the Japanese do. Its sanitary, its rather elegant, and its possibly going to solve your cat’s spraying problem.

Here’s a bit of fun trivia – Diana Vreeland to legendary editor of Vogue magazine had her maid clean the soles of her shoes. She was known to admonish Vogue staff members for wearing shoes with unwashed soles to the office!