Not Using Litter Box. PLEASE HELP!

Question
Last week my cat had a massive hairball. we didn't know it at the time, it even
took the vet 2 visits to figure it out. He was vomiting a lot and having
diarrhea. We got the proper help and he is now ok. However, during his sick
time, he wouldn't use his litter box. he would have diarrhea on the floor if we
didn't catch him in time. One time he had made his way up to our top floor
and had a little diarrhea up there. It's a carpeted loft and he did it in the
corner of the room behind the t.v. (there are a bunch of cables and some
tapes there, a bit of a mess). I had cleaned it up best i could, sprayed the area
with chlorox air spray. then today which is about a 4 days after he has shown
normal bathroom behaviour, we found 2-3 piles of poo (they were firm,
normal looking poo) as well as a puddle of urine in the same corner of the
room he had diarrhea in before. My question is, do you believe he went there
because he still smelled that he had gone to the bathroom there before? or
has he gotten used to not using the litterbox and doesn't care where he goes
to the bathroom? how do we get him to stop using that area?
By the way, the loft is 3 floors up from his litterbox which is in the basement.
We've had him for 9 months now and he is only a year and 1 month old. we
got him from the spca and he was already litter trained by a previous owner.
WE never had this problem before.  PLEASE HELP!

Answer
Jason,

More than likely when he went to the bathroom, before you discovered what his problem, was it was painful for him. Now he may associate the litterbox and where it is located with that pain.

I would try a different litterbox, maybe a different shape, and move it up to the loft and see if that cures the problem.

I am including a link to a website that has very good articles on improper elimination that you may find helpful.
Copy and paste, or type, the whole link into your address bar:

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/pointe/9352/litterboxhelp.html

Hope this helps.

Carol