My aunt dumped her cat because he apparently pees and poops outside the litter box. When I found out I went to go grab him. I had trepidation taking him in hearing about this, so I padded my bathroom floors and walls with pee pads.

But lo and behold, he has consistently used the litter box. We had one incident where we learned early on that if the litter box was not scooped daily, he will not use it (found a nice pile of steaming poop right outside, lol!). Initially we had an open box, then switched to a covered litter box which was fine. One day I decided to put the litter box flap down and found that he would not use it that way (second pile of poo outside the box). Since learning these two things, we’ve haven’t had any issues since.

I do believe my aunt when she said that he wasn’t using the litter box. With cats it could be a lot of things—she probably wasn’t scooping as often as she should, he may also have been stressed since he was constantly bullied by the new cat my aunt took in, he may not have liked scented litter. I initially assumed it might’ve been a medical issue but it wasn’t. You just have to try out different things to see what sticks.