Poops outside cat box

Question
My 16 year old Himalayan poops right outside the cat box on the floor in laundry room.  She does this even when she has new kitty litter and whether or not the top is on or off the cat box.  She pees in the cat box okay and does not potty any where else in the house.  How can I get her to start going back in the box again?

Answer
Marie,

You need to take your cat to the vet to rule out medical problems with her bowels or bladder. She should go to the vet just as soon as you can take her because many bladder and bowel ailments are harder to correct the longer they wait for treatment. I would also suggest that you place one litter box per level in your home. As your cat gets older she may experience issues controlling her urges to use the bathroom. I would even go so far as to suggest that she may be telling you that she is extremely clean preferring to pee in one box and poop in the other. You should clean the area that she has made mistakes in with an enzymatic cleaner which works by using friendly bacteria to eat the odor causing bacteria so that your little kitty will not make the same mistakes based on smell alone. If you have recently changed kitty litters go back to what you were using before she started to do the inappropriate elimination - she may not like the new litter. If there are any recent changes to the environment (moving, loss of a person or other pet, new person or pet in the environment, new baby, etc) then you will have to work with her to decrease the level of anxiety that she has about these changes. If you have put an air freshner in the immediate area of the litter box or you are using scented kitty litter try not using scents around the box. You mention that your litter box is in the laundry room, if you use fabric softner she may be trying to tell you that scents irritate her system in the same way that some people are sensitive to scents. The sooner that you get to the root of the problem the quicker you should be able to solve it. You want to stop this undesirable behavior before it gets too ingrained and becomes a habit. Good luck. Hopefully I was able to provide some useful tips and insight. Please do not hesitate to contact me again with any possible questions or concerns that you may have with this or any other issue. I will do my best to try to help solve the issues at hand.