This is a specific conversation about Cat litter boxes — size, type, and placement — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
Two unneutered males sharing a single tray is a recipe for exactly what you're experiencing — territory disputes, avoidance, and soiling outside the box. Before anything else: most litter boxes are far too small to begin with. A cat needs a tray at least 1.5 times its body length to feel comfortable, and covered boxes — while tidier for us — often make cats feel cornered, which is the last thing you want when there's already tension. So tell me: how big are your two cats, and where is the soiling happening — near the box, or in completely different spots around the house?
They're both pretty big, maybe 5kg each. One of them is going behind the sofa and the other keeps spraying near the front door.
inparticular.ai
Right, so the spraying near the door is classic territorial marking — that's about dominance and signalling, not really a litter box problem per se, though it's being made worse by the competition. The soiling behind the sofa tells me that cat genuinely doesn't feel safe using the tray when the other one is around. For two cats that size you need a minimum of two trays, and ideally three — the golden rule is one per cat plus one extra. Where are you keeping the current tray, and is there any way to put boxes in two completely separate parts of the home?
I've only got the one tray in the bathroom. I could put one downstairs in the utility room too. Would that help enough?
inparticular.ai
Separate locations will make a real difference — one cat can't guard both boxes at once if they're on different floors. Now, given how big your cats are, you want large open trays with high sides to contain scatter and give them room to turn around properly. I'd recommend the Savic Senator 56 — it's one of the biggest open trays widely available in the UK, around 56cm long with decent sides. It's not covered, which matters here because a cornered cat is a stressed cat. Get two of them, place them in genuinely different zones, and use the same litter in both so neither cat feels like one box is 'his'. Has the spraying been going on long, or is this fairly recent?
It's been about two months. They've never really got on but it got worse when we moved house.
inparticular.ai
Moving house is a big trigger — all the scent markers reset and both cats feel like they need to re-establish territory from scratch. The two Savic Senator trays in separate rooms will directly address the litter competition and the soiling. For the spraying, that's a harder habit to break while they're unneutered — have you had any conversation with a vet about neutering? It won't stop the spraying overnight, but unneutered males in the same house is genuinely one of the hardest multi-cat situations to manage long-term without it.
We've been putting it off but you're probably right. So just to confirm — two of the Savic Senator trays, one in each room, no lid?
inparticular.ai
Exactly that. Two Savic Senator 56 trays, no cover, one upstairs in the bathroom and one in the utility room. Use an unscented clumping litter in both — same brand, same depth. Scoop daily; cats will avoid a dirty tray even faster when there's another cat around. Once the boxes are sorted and you get the neutering done, you should see a significant drop in both the soiling and the aggression. The two problems are feeding each other right now, so fixing the territory stress around the litter genuinely helps the wider dynamic too.
