So my cat is, we guess, 7-8 months old. We adopted him from my boyfriend's mom, who saved him from her crazy neighbor. We got him neutered/vaccinated about a month ago. Part of the time he is a sweet, lovable cat - he curls up on our laps or rubs up against our legs and follows us around everywhere. He is also very cute and talkative and we actually have little "conversations" with him.
Unfortunately most of the time he is a very very naughty cat. He swipes at your feet when you walk past, he jumps up on the table all the time, jumps up on the counter and terrorizes my Betta fish and, most recently, tries to play with/tear down all my Christmas decorations. I realize he is still very much a kitten, and I try to remind myself of that, but sometimes he just does certain things or a combination of certain things that make me want to tear my hair out. Sometimes he ends up doing something HORRIBLE.
Today, I was cleaning out my lizard's tank. It took me about 30 minutes because it REALLY needed to be cleaned. I am not sure when this next part happened because every time I turned around, the cat was watching me, but when I went to put the tank back the cricket keeper was on the floor with the lid off. I just bought 24 crickets yesterday, and crickets are jumpy, so I can only assume that there are now crickets ALL OVER MY GODDAMN ROOM. There's clothes all over the floor and they're going to be in my bed and just. Ew. EW. I know he doesn't know this was something wrong, but he knows he shouldn't be up on the dresser in the first place.
He doesn't do bad things like that TOO frequently, but it's enough to irritate the shit out of me. I have a short temper so I admittedly get really angry with him and yell right away, and I'm not sure if that's more help or hurt. He also NEVER does anything like this when my boyfriend is home. He'll jump up on the table or get too rowdy but that's it. The especially horrible stuff he saves for me when I'm home alone, it seems.
I guess what I am asking is, what can I do to try and get him to realize when he's doing something wrong and that he shouldn't do it anymore? Again I have to say I do realize he's a kitten and that someday he will calm down, but I know for a fact he does some things on purpose...he waits until I'm not watching to do something he knows his bad. For instance yesterday, he kept jumping up on the counter to paw at the fish. He stopped once he saw I was watching, so I stepped into the shower for just a couple seconds and when I came back he was on the counter already.
We've tried spraying him with spray bottles, adding vinegar to spray bottles (I guess they aren't supposed to like the smell? all that's gotten us is a smelly living room/cat), grabbing him by the scruff of the neck until he calms down, giving him a firm "no," but he still repeats some of the same actions over and over again. We also play with him on a regular basis with wand toys and a laser pointer and a kitten mitten so I don't think he's vying for attention. I don't know what to do anymore.