So my girlfriend adopted an 18 month old cat who had gone through 2 or 3 previous owners. At first he was sweet if not a little skittish, and we thought with time his small misbehavior would improve however the longer he has been around the more misbehaved he has gotten. She has had him for nearly a year now and he has gone from scratching and nipping to destroying furniture and household items to now constantly spraying her bed.

He is completely destroying her home and it is a massive problem for her logistically and mentally. She is very emotionally attached to him and would feel extremely guilty about passing him on to yet another owner.

He has ample room and time to play, she takes him outside to do as he pleases daily, he has other cats to play with, he has toys and treats and scratch posts. She has tried positive reinforcement of behavior she wants encouraged and ignores him when does these bad things.

Nothing, NOTHING has worked to improve his behavior. For small periods of time he will improve but he will at random throw tantrums and make messes.

In order to help her I always look online to see what longtime owners and experts say and no matter how severely misbehaved the cat is they always say something like "well that's just cats 🤪" and it's incredibly frustrating.

Do owners of misbehaving cats just put up with this kind of horribly destructive behavior because aw geez nothing to be done?