Cats and houseplants?

[Lesa]

Is there a solution to cats who prefer houseplants to litter boxes? I have seen expensive "spikes" in some catalogs, but I was hoping for something that I might have laying around. Any ideas??

 

[katrinag]

When we had inside cats I put foil around the bottoms of all my plants.
How many littler boxes and cats do you have?

 

[Aneesa's Muse]

I put ball'd up aluminum foil over the entire surface of plant's dirt/substrate ..and it worked pretty good. They don't like the feel ..not sure why.. and the aluminum doesn't hurt the plant.

If you have multiple cats, you should have multiple boxes ..even if they still only use the one. You could have 4 cats and 4 boxes ..and they all only use 2

...but that's not the point (so Aneesa ..my beloved/departed kitty... once told me). Having multiple options is the point

Then again, Feliway is a miracle cure for a lot of quirky cat behaviours...

 

[eggzettera]

Just break off (or not - just bury) the handles to a bunch of plastic forks & bury them "teeth" up, they will not enjoy.....you can do the same in outdoor bedding areas where you have "issues". I just save them up from "take-out" - wash & re-use.....

 

[wegotchickens]

I put a lot of decorative stone pebbles in mine. Stones the size of banty eggs. Too heavy to dig around in and pretty to look at.

 

[jbowyer01]

I use pretty stones and in really large planters ( I have a huge cactus) I use bricks. My trouble isnt with them using them as litter boxes it using them as snacks. I've also used a little red or caynne pepper to deter them.

 

[rooster0209]

I second the stones/rocks thing. It kept my two cats from digging in my houseplants

 

[pinkchick]

The tin foil method works great for mine.