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Coping with Cats

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Re: Coping with Cats

#41

Post by r00fus »

interrupt_ wrote: post #16
gnulinux wrote: post #12

I'm a cat owner and never had a problem with smell. No one coming into my house mentioned anything about smell. I circulate air in my house every day and clean the litterbox ever day. I'm not sure why cats would cause any smell. And to add to this: yes I think cat ownership is very worth it. It's basically an on-demand pleasure source that you can use as long as you want, whenever you want. Just curl up into the soft…

> I circulate air in my house every day Might be hard to do that in really cold weather. I live in a place that's very warm and the windows are always open, so I can't relate.

Two box fans + windows (ie, apartment) or a whole house fan in a larger house can circulate air quickly in 15m.

I find useful to do that even in winter (maybe not in North Dakota winter).

Re: Coping with Cats

#42

Post by [deleted] »

r00fus wrote: post #34
powersnail wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wake up at 2 in the morning to some weird noises I used to have that problem. But I now make sure to exhaust my cat, feed him, and poop him before I sleep. And he no longer wakes me up in the middle of the night. Works like a charm.

I can understand the exhausting & feed him, but "poop him"? How do you control that?

[deleted]

Re: Coping with Cats

#43

Post by colanderman »

interrupt_ wrote: post #16
gnulinux wrote: post #12

I'm a cat owner and never had a problem with smell. No one coming into my house mentioned anything about smell. I circulate air in my house every day and clean the litterbox ever day. I'm not sure why cats would cause any smell. And to add to this: yes I think cat ownership is very worth it. It's basically an on-demand pleasure source that you can use as long as you want, whenever you want. Just curl up into the soft…

> I circulate air in my house every day Might be hard to do that in really cold weather. I live in a place that's very warm and the windows are always open, so I can't relate.

Energy recovery ventilators make this possible. There are even inexpensive window-mounted units.

Re: Coping with Cats

#44

Post by omginternets »

powersnail wrote: post #31
grawprog wrote: post #8

It's an alright list, but that's some beginner level stuff. Where's things like -cat is obssessed with plastic bags whenever he wants attention and ends up wearing them like a cape trailing it through the house causing havoc. -cat likes to knock over your breakable things just cause it likes to see them smash -wake up at 2 in the morning to some weird noises only to find the cat spiderman-ing up the screen on the win…

> wake up at 2 in the morning to some weird noises I used to have that problem. But I now make sure to exhaust my cat, feed him, and poop him before I sleep. And he no longer wakes me up in the middle of the night. Works like a charm.

>poop him

Like... do you hold him over the litter box and squeeze or something?

Re: Coping with Cats

#45

Post by gnulinux »

thomasfortes wrote: post #37
gnulinux wrote: post #12

I'm a cat owner and never had a problem with smell. No one coming into my house mentioned anything about smell. I circulate air in my house every day and clean the litterbox ever day. I'm not sure why cats would cause any smell. And to add to this: yes I think cat ownership is very worth it. It's basically an on-demand pleasure source that you can use as long as you want, whenever you want. Just curl up into the soft…

> And to add to this: yes I think cat ownership is very worth it. It's basically an on-demand pleasure source that you can use as long as you want, whenever you want. Just curl up into the soft kitty and feel him purring, awesome! If your cat is anything like mine, it is on demand for them... When they don't want to play they climb in the highest place that they can and look down on me and my frustrated attempts to c…

My cat used to do this (but with low places, he hides in places like cupboards etc, he always figures out a way to open them) but he sorta stopped doing it once I started playing with him during the day too. We used to play only at night, because you know I had to go to work during the day. But due to COVID I started playing with him during my lunch break and he usually hangs out next to me the entire day now.

It goes without saying they might wanna be alone every once in a while... I think that's normal cat behavior.

Re: Coping with Cats

#46

Post by com2kid »

r00fus wrote: post #5

Regarding the litter and smell - being a relatively new cat owner I did a lot of reading and I came to 2 conclusions (note: I only have one cat, and she's 1) Litter needs scooping every day. Otherwise cat will rightfully be upset and do poop in the wrong place just to let you know. Recommended to have N+1 litters for the N cats, but small apartment = difficult to place/clean all of them. 2) According to many cat book…

Pine litter completely removed the smell for me.

Unfortunately it turns out that after years of use cats can develop an allergy to it, which one of my cats did, so I had to stop using it.

But it is by far the best litter at odor control. The bathroom basically smelled like a forest.

Re: Coping with Cats

#47

Post by _jal »

grawprog wrote: post #8

It's an alright list, but that's some beginner level stuff. Where's things like -cat is obssessed with plastic bags whenever he wants attention and ends up wearing them like a cape trailing it through the house causing havoc. -cat likes to knock over your breakable things just cause it likes to see them smash -wake up at 2 in the morning to some weird noises only to find the cat spiderman-ing up the screen on the win…

My cats get fed when I start making dinner. They're really mellow about feeding time, I think it is that there's only an approximate time and that it is tied to me feeding me, they don't get neurotic about it.

The worst stupid cat trick I've put up with was one who would dart outside if he got the chance. Problem was, he had never been an outdoor cat, was pretty dumb, and would immediately panic and hide. Once ended up talking to the cops about breaking into my own house when someone saw me crawling underneath after spotting his eyes reflecting back at me.

Re: Coping with Cats

#48

Post by encom »

dmart wrote: post #11

I appreciated the recommendations, but from a tech perspective related most with this sentence in the opening paragraph: "when I tried to research mitigations for any of these it was 100% SEO listicles". I've found this to be true as well. Searching for impressions/reviews on literally any type of product is impossible now - the entire first page of results are just spammy sites either regurgitating PR for a specific…

>you have to suffix your search with "reddit".

Still, exercise scepticism. Reddit is heavily astroturfed.

Re: Coping with Cats

#49

Post by r00fus »

jakear wrote: post #20

I’ve always had my cats as outdoor/indoor animals, with no litterbox at all (Except when they’re very young). Never noticed any problems with smell, as cats are naturally clean animals and do a good job of simply finding a place to use the bathroom outside. I joke that indoor cats are like children (with all the maintenance that entails..), whereas outdoor cats are like delinquent friends that randomly show up to eat…

How do you deal with things like fleas? We have nearby squirrels and a small yard and are sure the fleas we dealt with were brought in by outdoor lounging from our cat.

Re: Coping with Cats

#50

Post by powersnail »

r00fus wrote: post #5

Regarding the litter and smell - being a relatively new cat owner I did a lot of reading and I came to 2 conclusions (note: I only have one cat, and she's 1) Litter needs scooping every day. Otherwise cat will rightfully be upset and do poop in the wrong place just to let you know. Recommended to have N+1 litters for the N cats, but small apartment = difficult to place/clean all of them. 2) According to many cat book…

In my experience, it's 1). scooping regularly, and 2) change the litter when it first starts to lose the potency.

The only time I had a cat smell problem was at the start of the quarantine, and my litter delivery got delayed. I still scoop regularly, but the remaining litter had obviously been less effective in containing the odor.

Since then, I've had a double-buffer for cat litter supply.

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