Hi all. I live in an apartment owned by a slumlord. There are a lot of small issues here that I fix myself even though I probably shouldn’t and shouldn’t have to, it’s the only way it will get done. Plus, I’m nervous to tell my landlord about this problem because I think they’d go straight to blaming my cat.

I moved to this place in September. Sometimes I smell cat pee in the apartment and when I’m outside on the front porch. But I KNOW it’s not my cat. My cat has never peed anywhere but their litter box and before moving here I never smelled this smell. It drives me crazy. If it were my cat I’d eventually find the source of the smell, right? But I never do. There’s no pee stain or wetness anywhere and there’s no carpet spot or shirt that actually smells like it’s been peed on. Just a slight cat pee smell in the air sometimes.

There are about a million stray cats in my neighborhood and I know some live under the porch. It was very very cold this past winter and at one point a stray found some path from under the porch into the basement here. It was crazy, I got them out and patched the hole they came in a little better. But today is a colder day and I turned on the heat for the first time in a while and instantly I smell cat pee. I think sometimes I smell it without the heat being on though and I’m not sure why I don’t smell it all day everyday if the cats are down there probably peeing everyday? But what can I do??? If I get the strays to stay away from the porch will that eventually stop the smell? Do I need to go under the porch and spray something to get rid of the smell? Are they doing this purposefully to bother my cat? Has anyone experienced anything like this? What would you do in my situation? THANK YOU!