cat deficates in wrong location - floor or bed

Question
Hi.  I have a 1 1/2 year old cat.  He is usually very good and cuddly.  He likes to play fetch and sleep next to me.  I thought we had him trained well, as we had a few months with no problems.  He doesn't have a problem with pee, but he occasionally poops on the floor in the bathroom.  That would typically happen when we spent the night somewhere else or had a long day at work.  I've been rewarding him when he does it correctly, and moving the bath mat away as that is what he seems to like going on.  However things are not getting better.  They just got a lot worse.  Today he pooped on my bed!  He did this once earlier in the week too!  I've been cleaning the spots that he's gone on.
The first time he did it we had a friend over (who the cat had met before) in the evening and while we were in the living room the cat pooped in the bed.  The second time was today.  I'm not sure if he did it at work or after I came home, but it was hard when I found it.

I'm going to take him to the vet, but he doesn't seem sick at all.  He is sleeping and eating normally, and still playful.  He was sick when he was little and mostly just wanted to sleep, and did not have any bathroom problems at that time.

How can I get him to stop pooping on the bed and floor?
I'll be closing the bedroom door for now, but I'd much rather be able to let him in there.

I've read all sorts of stuff about this topic and haven't found anything to help!  We haven't changed anything.  This cat has moved 3 times with us and did not have this problem upon moving to the new place.  

Answer
Hi
yes this does sound a bit of a problem. your cat sounds as if he is very insecure and he feels the need to scent mark the house when anything changes at all. as you probably know this behavior is called Middening and is a way for a cat to scent mark their home. this helps them to feel more secure i.e the home smells of them so everything must be fine. Also the bed is  the most common area as this smells most of you, which is comforting to him and he wants to add his scent too.

Unfortunately some cats are just more sensitive then other and so it can be difficult to put a complete stop on this behavior.

however if he is continually doing this then all i can suggest is a period of confinement litter training. this should help to allow the cat to calm down and get used to using their litter all the time again. I have a web page which describes the process in more detail here

/cat-poo.html

Hope the problem settles down again soon.

best wishes Kate