
My boyfriend adopted this little guy (4mo old) around 3 weeks ago. He was with his 3 brothers at the shelter, and he brought him home. He is so sweet and mischievous, overall a pretty awesome kitty. 

However, when my boyfriend leaves the apartment for work, he will yowl and cry for hours and hours, so loudly that my boyfriend has gotten multiple noise complaints, and more recently a call from apartment admin basically saying, “you need to make him be quiet or figure out a another place for him to go, or you’ll both go.” 

So he is at my apartment now. I have a more consistent work schedule, and I have fostered  shelter dogs before, but never a cat. I’ve been reading up on how to train him to be quiet - leaving a room, waiting for him to be quiet, coming back in for a treat. At first I was using a vacuum to make an unpleasant noise when he did start meowing, but I started to feel bad and quit, and he seemed like he was getting desensitized anyway. When I leave the apartment for work, I give him wet food snacks to help him associate me leaving with good things. I also play with him for about 2-2.5 hours a day, with one hour being before I leave for work, and give him 4 meals over 24 hours.

He’s doing well with it - on my pet camera, he seems to be sleeping most of the day. He will cry when I leave initially, but once I give him a wet snack when he quits meowing, he is quiet and sleeps under the bed for the majority of the day. However, when I got called in for a couple hours of work today, he cried loudly off and on for 20mins. Which is fine, and still progress. But it’s still more that he has cried since he’s been here.  

I’m going on a trip this weekend, so he will be going back with my boyfriend in 3 days. I am worried he will regress, him being moved back and forth again, him being back in that environment, dealing with my BF’s work schedule…we have a cat bed for him that sticks to the window, a multitude of automated toys and string feather toys, and we have bought a carpet for him, a bed skirt (since he seems to find that to be a comforting place, and my bf didn’t have one on his bed), a cat tree, scratch pad, and Fellaway. We have also moved the litter box to be more away from him during the day. 

Do you have any additional tips on how to make him stop screaming every day? Any thing else that has worked or that we can try? Is it just an age thing? Any reintegration tips? Is this a doomed effort? I expect it to take time, and I know it takes months for him to get comfortable in a place, but we don’t have that time.

**I am an adult from North America. A vet is financially accessible, but have not contacted. Cat is a neutered male, 4 months old. 

Please help - eviction or behavior change.