Since we moved into this house, I walk into the kitchen every morning to find three or four of the cats sitting around one of the floor vents, staring at it.
Archie, Frankie and Newt.
Stefan and Frankie.
Jake and Archie.
Jake’s like “What does he mean they ‘float’ down there?”
The people who owned this house before us had a dog – a Husky, I think, though I don’t really know dog breeds – and that spot is the perfect location for a dog to flop down and snooze. I suspect the cats can smell the dog smell coming out of that vent, and are probably trying to figure out what it is.
When we first moved into Shady Cove, Fred would tell me that the kitchen smelled “particularly doggy” every morning. Changing out the air filters helped a lot, but I’m sure the cats still smell something. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe there’s a clown or something else down there. Jake DID stomp off muttering “There’s no drum down there, red or otherwise!” the other day…
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Now that the screened porch is mostly done and one of the cat doors to the porch is in place, it naturally began raining. Archie, Kara, and Stefan went in and out several times, and once I put a cat bed in one of the chairs, Archie stayed out. I’ll put a couple of self-warming beds out there at some point, and I think we’re going to stuff the cat houses with straw so they can stay nice and warm while they glare at the rainy days.
Our initial plan was to have a half wall around the bottom of the screened porch, but our budget didn’t allow for that (what I actually would have liked was a heated and cooled sunroom, but our budget REALLY didn’t allow for that), so we opted for the full screen.
It’s supposed to be warmer for a few days this week, so I imagine the cats will be more interested in spending time out there – but for now they’re staying snuggled up inside.
“WUT.” (Newt)
“WUT.” (Alice Mo.)
“Sheriffin’ is cancelled for today.” (Kara)
Baleful Khal.
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It’s been a while since I shared this.
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Previously
2017: I feel like I’ve interrupted something.
2016: No entry.
2015: Stevie illustrates how best to take pictures of your belly with the Cat Selfie app.
2014: When it comes to the cats, Fred is 100% Aurora Greenway.
2013: “LADY YOU GOTTA SIT DOWN. I NEED SOME LAP TIME.”
2012: Also, so you don’t have to go without your kitteh fix, here I am getting my very first kitten for my (I think) sixth birthday, so it was mumblety-mumble years ago.
2011: No entry.
2010: No entry.
2009: She’s all ::sniffsniffsniff:: “HI TOMMY!” and he’s all “Yeah, whatever, runt.”
2008: No entry.
2007: Naturally, Mister Boogers heard us talking to them, and came up to be a jerk.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
I hate to be ‘That-Guy’, but I’m pretty sure you have a rodent problem. Rodents hanging out in heating ducts isn’t all that uncommon during the winter months. It should be fairly easy to determine this if you have access to the crawlspace under the house.
I was thinking the same thing…pretty sure no rodent would survive 2 seconds if it somehow popped up!
If it were a rodent issue, the cats would be in predator mode.
We had the house thoroughly inspected by an exterminator shortly after we moved in and he saw no rodent problem, much to the cats’ dismay. 🙂
it only takes one to get them searching for others.
Glad for the negative inspection result! Could just be the way the clown sounds down there!! More likely a tiny piece of paper or some such.Our felines don’t spend much time around the registers but sometimes do seem to pay attention when the fan comes on.
Another thing you might want to look into is getting your duct-work professionally vacuumed out. Relatives of ours did that once they no longer had a dog and had read about how much pet hair can accumulate in a system. They were amazed at the amount the service removed and how the heating/cooling improved. To them, the house even smelled better.
I like this idea!
I was going to say this. In the meantime, use a shop vac in the vent and run the hose far into the duct. That should suck up some of the gunk.
Especially if they had a husky, they’re shedding machines.
I have a fried with SEVEN huskies!!! 🙂
I love how amazing Khal looks. It’s like fra la la here’s a pretty kitty and here’s a pretty kitty and oh yes don’t mind that collection of dark matter in the corner. It’s friendly.
I laughed out loud at this!
me too
😀
This is so awesome, I also LOL’d!
I have to share – I LOVE cats but they can have some nasty habits. 16 years ago we moved into a little house with our 2 young boys and 2 cats. It is unknown whether the previous owner had animals, and I know we didn’t have rodents. But after awhile my 2 cats began to occasionally pee into the floor vents!!! I am sure that once the first one did it, the second one took the cue to join. It was a horrible problem to put it mildly… We had to eventually quarantine one cat to the garage and outside (she peed on the couch when we got a puppy :-/ ) and the other cat finally quit using the floor vent for the litterbox. We got the duct work changed out and when we moved, we had to ultimately remove the subfloor plywood to completely remove any remains of the smell… I’d never experienced this before and the vet had no helpful explanation or tips beyond stress and clean, clean, clean… you and Fred seem to have model cats from heaven and I wouldn’t expect it but wondered if any one else had cats who either used the vents or found a spot in the house that was completely inappropriate. There is NOT MUCH ELSE worse than cat urine… loving the move in stories Robyn – WHEN DO WE GET MORE KITTENS??? ^..^ ???
HA. Model cats from heaven we do not have, but (at least at this moment) we don’t have sprayers. We’ve never had any of them pee into the vents, but when Corbie was with us, he went through a stage where he sprayed a LOT. We covered all the furniture in washable pee pads, blocked off the areas where we were afraid he’d spray, and ultimately put him on Prozac for a couple of months, which finally worked. (I had tried Feliway, Rescue Remedy and something else… Oh! Zylkene, which at that time was only available from the UK, so I had to order directly from there. None of that worked, and a vet workup showed no physical issues, so Prozac it was.)
(And Prozac doesn’t work for all spraying cats, but it did for Corbie.)
One other possibility – have a listen at your vents. Sometimes when the heating system cycle on or off, they’ll give off a slight “ticking” sound. It could be attracting your cats.
Oh, we’ve listened. I haven’t heard anything BUT my elderly human ears also don’t hear as well as the ears of our cats, so who knows?
You could pick up a cheap borescope camera hose, hook it to a smartphone, tablet or PC, and play the theme from Mission Impossible as you go down the rabbit hole.
HA – that’s tempting!!
What type of screen did you use? I’ve wanted to do a screened in porch for years, don’t know if we ever will but if we do, it’d be nice to know what we should get. We’ve never had a problem with the cats and the regular screens in the windows. But floor to ceiling screens might be a different thing altogether.
We used cat screen – we ordered it from Amazon. The cats haven’t tested it yet, but I suspect it’ll hold up well. Challenger’s House has a screened porch, and after 10+ years of heavy use, the screen looks completely new.
The cat I grew up with would stare at the heater vent…until it came on. To her mind it was perfectly logical: if you stare at the vent long enough, it will produce heat! Maybe they’re just trying out their psychic powers.
This would not surprise me at ALL.
Your IT references are freaking me out. But – if IT is living in the basement, one look at Khal will send IT packing.
I can’t stand to see Hubble all alone on the sidebar. Please someone go get him! I would if I could.
If it helps any, Hubble is having a pretty good time with his current BFFs and isn’t sad and lonely and alone (but I agree, his people need to hurry it up!)
I bet they’re waiting for the heat to come back on and wondering why it goes away occasionally. They’re probably placing bets on who can get their furry butt over it the second that wonderful heat starts coming out!
LOVE the screened in porch! They’re gonna love it!
Today was a lot milder than yesterday, and there was a lot more interest in hanging out on the porch. Especially once they spotted a squirrel! 🙂
I’d say the guys have managed to settle in to their new digs quite well…
If there’s a clown down there, I will lose.my.crap. Just the visual is enough to give me my very own Kramer-meets-Crazy-Joe-Davola moment.