My roommates and I moved in almost exactly a month ago. (If anyone is concerned about the ethics of moving during the COVID crisis, I can explain the reasoning, but that's not the main point here.) One of my roommates has a cat who has free reign of the common areas, but we try to keep him out of my room for the most part because I and the friend I share it with are allergic. (I'm pumped full of allergy meds because I'm even more allergic to dust and pollen, so the concern is mostly for her.) We don't seem to have issues with his presence in the common area and I play with and cuddle him a fair amount because he's a sweetheart and I can't say no to him. He seems pretty determined to hang out in my room and occasionally we'll let him, although it's mostly just when we pop into the room for a second. If he follows us in, we'll just get whatever we needed or do whatever we had to do and then scoop him up on the way out. About a week ago, I went to brush my teeth and didn't close the bedroom door all the way behind me and he came in and peed a very tiny amount on our carpet. I'm not mad or anything (these things happen when you have a pet), but I want to make sure that it's just an accident and not a sign that he's stressed or something.
The apartment is new so if this just seems like something cats sometimes do when adjusting to new places, that would be really helpful to know. He's eight or nine months old, so I'm also thinking it might have just been an accident, but my roommate's say he's never had an accident before. I've only ever had dogs and with a dog a single accident when they're still a puppy wouldn't necessarily raise alarm bells, but I don't know if that's the case for cats. I'm under the impression that they are less likely to have random accidents than dogs are.
On the other hand, I'm worried this means the new place is stressing him out too much or that I am causing him stress. Alternatively, it occurs to me that this might be an issue of unclear boundaries. We've been lax largely because we feel bad closing the door in his face, but if it's not good for him to be sometimes allowed and sometimes kept out, we can just make the door a firm boundary. My roommate thought it might have been a territorial thing, in which case I guess we'd also have to make it a firm boundary. If this is a sign of being generally stressed out, though, I would want to know so we can address the cause of that stress.
TL;DR My roommate's cat peed in my room (where he usually isn't allowed) and I want to make sure it's not a sign of something upsetting him. Does anyone with more cat experience have a thought about why this happened?
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/gf203t/is_my_roommates_cat_stressed/
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