Operation Save-a-Bonus-Room

We are in a very tough spot around here.

My kitty, Princess, has been a bad girl.  Her litter box is located in our bonus room.  She has the run of the house during the day, but is locked in the bonus room at night (as she likes to knock on all of the other closed doors in the house if she roams free overnight, equaling rest for no one).  Well, for some reason, unbeknownst to me, Prinny has taken it upon herself to claim the entire bonus room.

As in, she pees wherever she pleases in that room.

The perimeter of the room is pretty much wrecked.  She chooses to use her litter box sometimes, but other times to back herself up to the wall and let it flow.  Seriously gross.

The thing is, she only does this in the bonus room.  She has never peed anywhere else in the house.  I genuinely believe that she thinks it's okay to pee on the floor in the bonus room.  That this is the spot we've designated for her.

WRONG-O.

I have come to the point where I would like to reclaim that room.  No, I NEED to reclaim that room.  The nugget is growing quickly, and his many, MANY accouterments are taking up mucho space in the house.  The boy needs a play room.  And we will, at some point, have another baby, at which point we will REALLY need every available inch of space in this house.  Not to mention the fact that we are really starting to think about putting this house on the market and looking for something a little bit bigger and a lot closer to J's new job...

ENTER OPERATION SAVE-A-BONUS-ROOM.

I hate to say it, but my first thought was to give the cat up.  I really didn't know what else to do!  I have really, really been struggling with the decision, as I am not one to just give a pet up because they are an inconvenience to me.  But I felt as though I was left without any other choice.

Turns out, there isn't a single no kill shelter that will take her.  At eleven, she's too old to re-home.  I absolutely WILL NOT take her to a shelter that euthanizes.  And I can't let her outside, because she has no front claws.  

Moving onto Plan B...

Today, we went to Home Depot to special order an exterior door with a built-in kitty door.  We will move her litter box out into the garage, and she can enter house/garage at will through said kitty door.  Then, we will rip up all flooring in bonus room, spend several weeks de-stenching subfloor, sealing, replacing trim, and will finally lay new carpet.

Oy.  I am exhausted (and broke) just thinking about it.

The bright side here (I guess?) is that if we want to sell this house, we would have had to do all of the flooring mess either way.  So we'll call that part a wash.

I sincerely hope that my kitty can be a good girl, and stick to the garage from now on!  We will keep all upstairs doors closed at all times, so she can't sneak back to her old ways.  And this way, I get to keep my pet, who I've had since I rescued her from a fraternity house when I was in college.

Everyone, fingers crossed that Operation Save-a-Bonus-Room is a success!