I love my cat. Also, she's driving me mad.

January 24, 2016 10:00 PM

My cat and I are in a bedroom-door war. It has been a protracted and emotional conflict. Please help.

My cat will not stop scratching and pawing at my bedroom door. The issue stems in part from the fact I have roommates, and thus will not leave my bedroom door open all (or even most of) the time. Her litter box, food, and water are in the common areas of the apartment, and cannot be moved into my bedroom. All that being said, I want to be able to hang out with my cat in my room sometimes, and leave her outside my room at night, without this crap. Is this impossible?

She scratches to get in when she is outside the closed door. I should not it's not just scratching and pawing; she actually wedges her little paw into the space between the door and frame and shakes the whole door, making this unbelievably loud and irritating micro-slamming sound. My current solution to this, which does stop the behavior, is stuffing a towel underneath the door so she can't get purchase in the space between the door and frame - but she always gets a bit of scratching and micro-slamming in before I put the towel down. Of course, I do leave my room eventually, and at that point she generally darts in.

She also scratches to get out when she is in my room, although she knows this behavior annoys me and, about 70% of the time, will instead sit near the door meowing and meowing until I let her out. My latest strategy has been to totally ignore any scratching, and wait until she has stopped meowing to open the door. Still, she persists. I can't keep her in my room because I worry she needs the litter box or food/water.

It has been four months of this, now. I have read so many cat behavior articles and questions. Fundamentally, all seem to conclude that consistency is of paramount importance and that the behavior cannot be rewarded in any way, even through negative reinforcement.

What do I do here? I am most confused by the persistent scratching and micro-slamming. I NEVER reward that. The towel (does that count as rewarding the behavior?! She can't see when I get up to lay the towel down!) is non-optional, both for my sanity and to prevent her from destroying the door. Do I just have to ban her from my room permanently? This would make me really sad, because I spend a lot of time in my room and I want to hang out with her too. Help!

posted by sevensnowflakes to Pets & Animals (28 answers total)

we tried to have a cat free bedroom at night. foil in front of the door, double sided tape, running him before bed, a hand vac that he hates laid in front of the door, keeping him out of the bedroom altogether - it didn't work. now we have a boot laid down in the doorway so we can close the door most of the way and still leave room for our little shitpaws to come and go as he wishes. we all sleep better at night this way.
posted by nadawi at 10:18 PM on January 24, 2016 [10 favorites]

Any reaction to your cat's behavior is seen as reinforcement because cats don't discern between "positive" and "negative" attention when all they want is attention. I would say lay the towel down at night every time before going to bed, and then never react, no matter how much noise your cat is making. Repeat this for as long as it takes.

Two alternatives: one, bring litterbox, food, and water in there with you at night. Or two, use nadawi's suggestion and block the door so it will open just a crack but no more.
posted by Anonymous at 10:23 PM on January 24, 2016

How about getting a little cat door built into your bedroom door so she can come and go during the night? It's not necessarily the most ideal solution but could make her happy and still give you privacy; you could close it as needed.
posted by smorgasbord at 10:23 PM on January 24, 2016 [16 favorites]

If you move her food and litter into the room with you she is going to claw to get out. Cats are assholes that way. They need access to the full range of their territory at all times.

Any chance the landlord will let you install a cat door? It's pretty much the only option.
posted by 26.2 at 10:30 PM on January 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well, I'd offer up as good news that one day my infamously obnoxious and vocal cat just seemed to accept that sometimes he can sleep in my bedroom and sometimes he'll be shut out. It took a long time, and I'm honestly not sure what combo did the trick. He does HATE water so my then-girlfriend and I would spray him under the door and he eventually stopped shaking the door as you describe, though he'd still wail loudly outside it. Also, like nadawi, we tried the vacuum but he seemed MORE determined to get in when we turned it back off, probably because he wanted to tell us all about the monster that attacked him.

I suspect spraying your cat with water won't be enough, but for a pretty inexpensive solution, have you seen these anti-cat mats? My friend with two cats had really good luck with a mat like this to keep her cats off the counters, and frankly, her cats are spoiled rotten so I'd say the mats work wonders!

The other thing that helps is making sure the cat has enough stuff to do while you sleep and a warm spot that makes up for not laying on top of warm humans. For my cat, that means I make sure the blinds are open to his favorite window, that I put out his favorite toys (which are, for some reason, empty plastic Easter eggs) AND I remind him about his self-warming bed by sticking him in it before I head to bed. I honestly think the bed thing might be your best bet as a next step. My cat needs a truly breathtaking amount of human interaction to settle down, but it isn't a lot of playtime and petting and chatting that stops him from complaining at the door, it's having a bed he likes more than me. (I got one made for a small dog on Amazon because it was way cheaper than the self warming cat beds, I think it was around $20.) They also make electric heated beds but I'm too paranoid about fire safety to try them. (And also maybe a little bit jealous knowing my cat might never hang out in my lap if I got one.)
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 10:37 PM on January 24, 2016

I just wanted to clarify that the mat I linked to that I heard about from a friend is not electric, it's just knobby so the cat doesn't like stepping on them. Electric ones also come up when you search for cat repellant mats, but there are plenty of non-electric mat types that might fit your door better.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 10:51 PM on January 24, 2016

We too solved this by leaving our door slightly ajar.
posted by slidell at 11:26 PM on January 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

How much does an interior door cost? For that price, you can buy your sanity back. Get a new door, cut a cat-sized mouse hole in the bottom. Install the old door back in the frame when you move out.
posted by Lou Stuells at 12:05 AM on January 25, 2016 [20 favorites]

Yeah, wedging the door ajar or the internal cat door (fab suggestion!) are the only solutions I can see. My cats are mortally offended by the spare door being shut when we have guests and that's despite one of them being terrified of strangers. Cats are insanely patient and determined and have all night long to plot their revenge.
posted by kitten magic at 1:44 AM on January 25, 2016

One way to leave the door slightly open is to install one of those front-door door chains.
posted by trig at 2:16 AM on January 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm only laughing because my cats do this too and the cat who has to scratch all night to be let in, only to scratch to be let out was recently a Buzzfeed meme.

I think it IS a territory thing or a catz be assholes thing. I think they sleep all day and only get up to eat and poop and to demand the occasional scritch to build up their stamina for door scratching when you're asleep.

I have 4 cats (thanks Kinetic Jr, veterinarian in training and animal rescuer) who are all missing various parts and have unparalleled levels of stupidity. Puff aka Queen Ava was a, "Let me in!!" NO! Let me OUT!!" cat and I managed to completely wedge the door closed, put foil underneath and within the first foot of the door to keep her from scratching all night long.

So she stopped scratching but then she decided it would be more effective to cry. And oh, did she cry. Crying like she was auditioning for "America's Loudest Cat," crying like someone was stealing her kittens, crying like she hadn't eaten in weeks. That cat had lungs.

Now I just put a wedge in the door and leave it open 4". Just enough for that idiot cat to get in and out as needed.

And she doesn't even sleep with me, such is her betrayal of me taking away "Ava's Fun Door Time."
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 2:36 AM on January 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

We have two cats, one of whom will take the opportunity to attack my face if she finds me asleep and wants attention. Therefore, they can't sleep with us (one split lip was enough!). However, as seems to be pretty common, a closed door between us and them is like, heh, catnip: scratching the carpet, yowling, banging on the door.

For the past 6 years or so we've solved this problem by having not one but two closed doors between us and the cats during the night. In a nutshell: they can't hear us, and we can't hear them.

In house 1, we had a hall door that we could close between the bedrooms and the living areas (the cats got the living areas, with their litter & water in the laundry); in house 2 we dedicated an entire bedroom to the cats (including litter and water) and closed them in there at night; and in our current house, the laundry is dedicated to the cats (complete with scratch poles, comfy beds, the works -- we're lucky enough to have a large laundry in this house).

This works extremely well for us. The cats have their own bedtime: at around 8pm, they start harassing us because they want to go to bed -- or more precisely, because they get "half a dozen bikkies" at bedtime, which is evidently the highlight of their day. They then stay in their room until 6am or whenever we get up to release them and feed them breakfast. They're so used to this arrangement that we don't hear a peep out of them until we open the door the next morning; if we re-open the door at night five minutes after their bedtime, we get surprised cat "hello?"s and simply give them another couple of bikkies to re-settle them.

Anyway, if you do have such a space where you might be able to close them in at night, it might be worth a try. (However, if the only space you have is a shared bathroom that people will use at night, I don't think that will work so well; I think it's better if the cats can remain undisturbed.) It's certainly far preferable to noise, ruined doors and carpets, and facial wounds. :P
posted by snap, crackle and pop at 3:27 AM on January 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

This motion-activated, compressed air did the trick for us.

We just put it out when we go to bed and pick it up in the morning. It doesn't always activate (I think it has problems in low light), and it certainly does not activate 3 whole feet away - more like 10 inches, but it has worked often enough that we don't even need to turn it on anymore.
posted by zyxwvut at 5:24 AM on January 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah, those air sprayers work a treat. We once tried it with a spray bottle of water, but you have to get up out of bed and spray them every time they scratch or meow, even if it happens every 15 minutes, all night. It took two torturous weeks for our cats to get used to the idea, but it worked with only very irregular (like once a month) backsliding where they would scratch once or twice and then remember. After moving to a new house and getting new cats we switched to the autosprayer, and that did the trick in 10-12 days. Just don't forget it is there and scare the shit out of yourself on the way out of your bedroom in the morning.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:07 AM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Our cats didn't mind being sprayed with water, played with aluminum foil, licked the sticky tape, licked the smelly deterrent spray, and scratched at the wall when the air spray kept them away from the door. We now keep the door open.

Would something like this give you a little more peace of mind at night with the roommates?
posted by specialagentwebb at 6:40 AM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, Ssscat is sort of what you need. But it seems a bit cruel in this case, since your cat can't have all the things a cat needs all at once. On the other hand, it is also true that your cat is kind of a butthole.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 7:10 AM on January 25, 2016

You need to go get a door and have someone cut a cat-shaped hole in it, like this.

If you have a Habitat for Humanity Store in your area, you should be able to find used doors for super cheap.
posted by Ostara at 7:27 AM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

What about leaving the door open a crack, but installing a curtain with a tension rod for privacy? This is what I did when I still lived with my parents, and wanted the door closed but also wanted the cats to be able to come and go. A cat door would be ideal, but you might not be able to do that with your lease.

Honestly it sounds like she wants to be with you.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:23 AM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I had this problem at my house with the cat shaking the whole door with her paw at night! It's so loud! I got a ScatMat. It shocks the cat. It feels like static electricity. I'm surprised it's enough to scare her off. It really feels like not much of anything. My dumb dog sits on it and it keeps shocking him and he just doesn't move. HA. But for whatever reason it's enough to keep the cat away. I only had to keep it turned on maybe a week. Now the mat just sits by the door turned off and she doesn't scratch at the door. The moment I take the mat away or open the door enough for her to jump over it, she comes right into the bedroom.
posted by ilovewinter at 9:04 AM on January 25, 2016

I accidentally found this out with my daughter's room. If you leave the door closed most of the time when you're not there, the cat will mentally limit their territory to the common area, and when he does get in the bedroom, he will view it as a treat and not scratch to get in. He will however scratch to get out, which might be too much too.
posted by corb at 9:40 AM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I had this problem with a former cat. My dad devised this awesome counterweight system with eye hooks, string, and a weight. There was an eye hook in the top corner of the door on the side with the doorknob. The string was tied to that eye hook. The string passed through another eye hook in the wall, just above the door frame, right above the eye hook in the door. The string then passed through another eye hook in the wall on the non-doorknob side, just above the door frame. Then it went through an eye hook in the wall, next to the door frame, on the non-doorknob side. Finally, it went through an eye hook next to the door frame on the non-doorknob side, about halfway down the wall. At the end of that string was a weight. The whole configuration looked like an upside-down L.

In the crude schema below, the Os are eye hooks and the x is the weight. The capital O is screwed into the door. The others are in the wall, adjacent to the door frame.

o _ _ _ _ o
o            O
|
o
|
x

With this counterweight system, I'd leave the door all the way shut, but not latched. The cat could nose the door open and enter. When he did that, the string pulled the weight up. After he passed through the door, the weight pulled the door shut again. He learned to get out of the room by putting his paw under the door and pulling. The automatically door shut behind him.

It was brilliant, and it worked great, and it would do better at keeping sound in and out than a cat door would.
posted by mudpuppie at 11:01 AM on January 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Forgot to mention: The weight was a bottle of water. Adjusting the amount of water in the bottle changed the speed and force with which the door closed.
posted by mudpuppie at 11:04 AM on January 25, 2016

Our cat used to do this, and spraying her with water worked like a charm. I think we only had to do it twice.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:24 PM on January 25, 2016

My cat does this exact thing sometimes. I wedge a thick towel under the door so the door is flush with the frame and can't be rattled. Works fine as a temporary solution, you could try it tonight.
posted by zug at 1:44 PM on January 25, 2016

Doh, that's what I get for not reading the full question. Put the towel in before you go to sleep as a temporary fix?
posted by zug at 1:45 PM on January 25, 2016

So has all of this scratching of the door already done some damage? If it has, I'd buy a replacement door to have on-hand and then cut the damaged door and install a cat door so that the cat can move in and out according to its needs. If your current door isn't damaged (yet), take that door off and store it and buy a replacement door and install a cat door. The flap on the cat door will afford you privacy and it solves the problem.

My main concern with the re-training advice is that once your cat has been trained to not pester you, it may find that pestering your roommates with micro-slamming and scratching the door could become an issue.
posted by quince at 2:30 PM on January 25, 2016

This would seem to be the ideal solution. (Google search for cathole cat door).
posted by jvilter at 6:05 AM on January 26, 2016

Have you considered making the common area more appealing for your cat? A cozy nook with an electric blanket makes our bedroom the 2nd-warmest spot in the house, and now our kitten retires there instead of playing on top of our heads in the middle of the night.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 7:46 AM on January 26, 2016