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my roommate is a bad cat owner
SoaL
fantasticRegistered User regular
fantasticRegistered User regular
What do you recommend I should do?
the backstory (as I know it):
He got 1 female cat some time ago, in the last place he was renting. The cat was an 'indoors cat' until one of his roommates left the back door open and it got out (and knocked up). That's possible, but I have seen a few times where, in his rush from 'smoking a cigarette' to 'resuming online video game', a door to outside has been left ajar. His cat had kittens, he managed to find people to take some of the kittens and was left with 2 male kittens. The males were about 8 months (by his count) when he moved into the house I'm renting along with 2 other dudes (plus him, 4 total).
The first time the mom gets into heat (??) I am surprised and ask 'aren't they fixed?'. he gives a pointless excuse and proceeds to segregate the mother from the two sons as best he can (alternates locking the mom in his room and letting the other two roam the house, and vice versa). The cats make a show up tearing up the places they think their mother is hiding and spraying fluids everywhere else. He gets one son fixed (why not the mother??). Spoiler alert: the other cat still impregnates the mother.
So here's how I've noticed he tends to the cats:
-the litterbox is rarely tidied. I estimate about once a week is the thing tended to at all. The cats run out of places to shit, and they either just go ontop of the litter without attempt to bury it or tear up a bit of rug (unfinished basement that we rarely use with some old rugs around) and coil the turd in some rug-tearings
-they eat only dry catfood and water. a google reveals this isn't a very healthy diet for cats. I've seen the water super low after he's already left for work... so either he forgot or the cats drank a full dish in an hour or two
-i don't see him really... like "use" the cats all that much. You know? You have a pet and you would want to like, dangle string around it or something? He announces their name when he sees them, and sometimes the one not-neutered male meows a whole lot and he just groans for it to shut up
anyway, the mom just gave birth to 2 more kittens today. and it really sucks to think about what they're getting dealt. what can i do??
at first I thought it was just neglectful, but iwth perspective it is abuse.. These are some cats that could be cool and playing with 4 year olds or something, instead they're just living this crap.
long thread that i could have made way longer and worded way better...
tl;dr - my roommates cat impregnated its mother, mother gave birth to two kittens today. he is neglectful cat owner at best.
the backstory (as I know it):
He got 1 female cat some time ago, in the last place he was renting. The cat was an 'indoors cat' until one of his roommates left the back door open and it got out (and knocked up). That's possible, but I have seen a few times where, in his rush from 'smoking a cigarette' to 'resuming online video game', a door to outside has been left ajar. His cat had kittens, he managed to find people to take some of the kittens and was left with 2 male kittens. The males were about 8 months (by his count) when he moved into the house I'm renting along with 2 other dudes (plus him, 4 total).
The first time the mom gets into heat (??) I am surprised and ask 'aren't they fixed?'. he gives a pointless excuse and proceeds to segregate the mother from the two sons as best he can (alternates locking the mom in his room and letting the other two roam the house, and vice versa). The cats make a show up tearing up the places they think their mother is hiding and spraying fluids everywhere else. He gets one son fixed (why not the mother??). Spoiler alert: the other cat still impregnates the mother.
So here's how I've noticed he tends to the cats:
-the litterbox is rarely tidied. I estimate about once a week is the thing tended to at all. The cats run out of places to shit, and they either just go ontop of the litter without attempt to bury it or tear up a bit of rug (unfinished basement that we rarely use with some old rugs around) and coil the turd in some rug-tearings
-they eat only dry catfood and water. a google reveals this isn't a very healthy diet for cats. I've seen the water super low after he's already left for work... so either he forgot or the cats drank a full dish in an hour or two
-i don't see him really... like "use" the cats all that much. You know? You have a pet and you would want to like, dangle string around it or something? He announces their name when he sees them, and sometimes the one not-neutered male meows a whole lot and he just groans for it to shut up
anyway, the mom just gave birth to 2 more kittens today. and it really sucks to think about what they're getting dealt. what can i do??
at first I thought it was just neglectful, but iwth perspective it is abuse.. These are some cats that could be cool and playing with 4 year olds or something, instead they're just living this crap.
long thread that i could have made way longer and worded way better...
tl;dr - my roommates cat impregnated its mother, mother gave birth to two kittens today. he is neglectful cat owner at best.
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Ontario, Canada
but they're listening to every word I say
I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and guess he doesn't have these cats licensed with your county/city/whatever, which is often illegal/definitely a good way to not get your cat back if it gets lost or misplaced. You can always "accidentally leave the door open" and ensure the cats magically find their way directly to the no-kill shelter/homes of people off craigslist. But, he sounds like a moron who isn't about to learn from a mistake he probably doesn't even see, so the odds of him bringing home more cats to replace these ones are probably pretty good.
Honestly I would probably just harp on it every day until he either started started providing basic care just to get me off his back, got rid of them, or got so fucking tired of me bitching constantly that he decided to move out and I didn't have to think about it anymore.
tl;dr I have no real advice. That's a fucking shitty situation, though. I will be interested to hear how this gets resolved, if it ever does.
edited to add: also, if he only has one litterbox set up for three cats, and he is cleaning it once a week, dollars to donuts those cats are pissing all over your goddammed house when you aren't looking. that's fucking disgusting and he needs to sort his shit out, because when your landlord does his walkthrough after your lease is up and the whole place is soaked in cat urine, I'm not convinced your deposit is going to be safe, either.
Are you on friendly terms at all where you can try and convince him to give the cats up? Offer to take care of it, if you can. If not, recommend demand he at least neuters his cats. again if you have the time, money and inclination offer your assistance. As for the other stuff it's almost impossible to convince someone to do something consistently that they are too lazy and indifferent to do on their own. Does he clean up accidents, or at least attempt to, right away? If not, does he do it when you remind him? If your place is starting to smell and look like one big litter box, there might be some legal way to have him declared a unfit pet owner and have the cats removed. Local animal control, (mental) health services or police might have more information on that.
Or you could inform your landlord/rental company. If you are renting I'm sure they will be very interested. But there is a chance they would just pressure him into getting rid of the cats any way possible. In a just kick em out door if you have to, kind of way, rather than doing something responsible. What is your rental situation? You need to make sure there is no way you will be held liable for the damages.
But really, unless you can convince him to do the right thing (or let you help with getting them done), you can't continue living with this person. One of you would have to move. Living in unsanitary condition is bad for both your physical and mental health. And if you solve this by "telling" on him (not that this is a bad thing if talking doesn't work) you will be in an unbearably unfriendly roommate situation. Your primary concern should be your health and financial situation. You don't want to be the one held responsible for the bill for this extended cats gone wild party. It could easily be thousands of dollars. If you can save these cats (and your roommate from himself) too, that's great.
Tell this guy he needs to start taking care of his cats, ie getting them spayed/neutered, and cleaning up after them. if he can't afford to do that, i doubt he'll be able to afford the loss of your security deposit along with his. get your other roommates involved as well. Is this guy a friend, or just a roommate? i'd deem getting the landlord involved the nuclear option, because most likely this will involve getting him or all of you booted from the place. tell him: look man, i was cool with 1 cat, 3 is pushing it, and 2 more kitties is not ok. if you think the litterbox fills up quick with 3 cats, imagine 5!
He is not exaggerating.
I will say dry food and water, no canned food, is not exactly an "abusive" diet or anything, but the rest of that mess is ridiculous
In the very short term - if your roommate isn't going to clean the litter daily, you and the other roommates need to do it, if only for your health and making sure your place doesn't get even worse than it already is. And it'll make the kitties happy, and you want happy kitties, right? As the previous posts have noted, the dry food diet isn't a problem as long as the cats have plenty of fresh water, so if you notice that their water bowl is running low, take a minute to refresh it for them. And play with them if you can, though I'd understand if they were aggressive towards you and other humans based on how they've been treated.
I'm not a fan of taking the cats to the shelter behind your roommate's back, but then again, if you confront your roommate and he doesn't change and then you take the cats to the shelter, he's going to be uber-pissed, so I'm kind of torn on that front. And the new kittens need to be spayed or neutered, and it seems pretty clear to me that isn't going to happen unless you step in and do something. And it seems clear this guy would struggle taking care of one cat, let alone five.
Before going much further - what do the other two roommates think about this? Does your lease say anything specific about number of pets allowed or if the pets have to be spayed / neutered? You might have more luck convincing him to change his behavior if you have numbers and the lease specifications on your side. Otherwise, as much as I don't like it, taking the cats to a shelter behind your roommate's back might be the best option. These cats deserve good homes and it doesn't seem like your roommate is providing one.
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
So if the carpet, pad, and subfloors need to be replaced because it's a biohazard (which it will be), you're looking at a few grand.
Looking at the OSPCA link, they're not no-kill shelters, so I wouldn't do that. Even if they were, cats in most shelters spend their lives in small spaces (and on dry food diets) with little companionship. Their litter would get changed more often, but I wouldn't say that their lives are categorically better than what's described here, and there could be animals that need that space more.
In any case, depending on the crowding situation there's a chance that if the cats went to the shelter they'd be destroyed, especially the mother.
also,
Also while there is a chance that if the OP takes these animals to a kill shelter they will be destroyed, that chance is generally quite small especially with kittens are they are one of the easiest animals to adopt out. Many shelters do have multi-cat cages or companion cage time; animal shelters are not terrible cage factories hell bent on making sure cats have no interaction with other animals, that's against their bottom line because well-socialized cats are easier to adopt out and are more likely to stay adopted out. And the sooner these kittens are removed from a feral colony in the making, the better; once they reach a certain age it's going to be harder and harder to remove behaviours that they've learned from growing up with minimal human contact.
Although this sounds like a gross environment the only thing I'd consider "abuse" is him not getting those cats fixed. 1st the female (what the fuck? He neutered a cat but not the one with ovaries?).
This is just an unsanitary situation for everyone involved, you need to have a sitdown now. To mitigate some of the damage you can get some Nature's Miracle from the pet store to clean up spray/urine spots but i would just use that for your stuff to be honest and not enable your roomate.
The way your roommate seems to just brush off the cats is very troubling, I am not sure why he is a pet owner if they seem to just get in his way?
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
I don't see a lot from the OP to suggest that it's gone that far. He hasn't said that the cats have gotten out more than once. He hasn't said that they never get veterinary care -- one of the cats got neutered, and although the circumstances are weird it hopefully means there was a vet involved. There seems to be a leap directly from the mother getting out once and having kittens straight to giving the cats away behind the owner's back.
As far as roommates go, when one of them doesn't own the place, that unless you all agree to something, nothing happens. So if you all agree to keeping a clowder/clutter/glaring/pounce/unkindness of cats around, the roommate should get rid of them. If the census is that you all want the one cat, then keep the one and have your roommate donate or whatever the others. If you're renting from one roommate, then it's technically his rules. But I don't really know how those would apply here.
I realize my terminology isn't the best, but I hope the point is made.
I have a cat who refuses to eat basically anything except dry food. I have tried to give her all sorts of different wet foods, but she doesn't even like soft treats. It's so peculiar.
Also, and I apologize for the quick thread-jacking, but your post has made me seriously reconsider my habits regarding cleaning my cat's box. I have only one cat, and one box, which is pretty large, and I usually only clean once per week. I don't think I need to do it daily, but if weekly for 1 box/1 cat is as absurd as you are making me worry it is, I am probably going to clean it at the very least three times as often as I do now. I picked up the habit from another person who owned cats that I lived with, and I am completely unaware if this is a terrible plan.
To side track a little more, I guess it depends on how large your space is and if you have a space that is just for catbox nastiness. We only have a 700sq foot apartment and with one cat we clean it every other day; two cats we've gone up to daily. We're pretty on top of it though because the litter box is right in our personal space. My sister has two cats, two boxes, and cleans once a week - but hers are in the basement in their own separate kitty litter box room, so it's less of a concern.
As for cleaning the litter box, if the cat doesn't care, and you don't care, then there's nothing really wrong with cleaning once a week, but in the above situation, where it's multiple cats and once the box is full of shit and piss they don't want to step in it and so start eliminating outside the box, that's the problem.
I have two cats, one box, and I clean it daily, but that's because my place is small, and there's no out of the way place to keep it, so that keeps everything smelling nice and fresh.
If I was in the OP's place, I'd get the other housemates behind me and tell dumbass roomate he needs to pack his bags and get out, but I just happen to have very low tolerance for people screwing up in ways that leaves shit and piss in places they're not expected. Tell him he should leave the cats, and take care of getting them spayed/neutered, and put into an appropriate shelter, if you don't want to keep them. I may have a different view of things because I used to volunteer regularly at the local humane society, but while living in a shelter vastly inferior to a loving home, it's better than a situation where neither they nor the people they're living with are happy with the arrangement.
Poor things, do they at least have toys or something?
I'm also loathe to suggest the spca at the moment, don't know bad it is in Ontario at the moment, but in BC they are overfull, they won't even take them.
I'll try to be more on his case to clean up, my other roommates will likely follow suit as we have commiserated about this. I'll start looking at other places to live in case things don't get better.
If your cat is well hydrated and fed, they will be both peeing and pooing at an average of once per day, not sure a litter box could be big enough for that.
Also, another thing for everyone to seriously take note of: how often cats (and dogs) pee and poo is a very good indicator of if something is wrong with them. When you clean the l itter box only every severeal days, or once a week, you really can't pick up on it.
But if you're cleaning htem every day, and you notice for two or three days in a row "hmm, I haven't seen any pee in a while", then you know that either the cat isn't drinking enough, or they've started peeing somewhere else.
Gives you a hint to check their water bowl levels, and if those are fine to start looking around for somewhere else that they've been peeing, and to take the cat to a vet because generally, cats really will prefer to pee in a litter box where they can hide what they expelled, but if something is mkaing peeing painful, they may be associating hte pain with the location and that needs to be checked out.
tl;dr: cleaning the litter box often is a very good verification of how the cat is doing health-wise
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
Also DO NOT TAKE THIS MAN'S CATS WHILE HE IS NOT THERE AND GIVE THEM TO A SHELTER OR SOMEBODY ELSE.
For one, that's fucking immoral, and for another, since his cats are his property, it's illegal.
I don't care if he's neglecting them, unless he's intentionally causing them physical or psychological harm, you don't just take someone's pets away from them.
The mature thing to do is have a house-meeting, with all four of you, to discuss the cat issue. It would not at all hurt to meet with the other roommates before hand and make sure you are all on the same page.
Also check local ordinances regarding cat and pet ownership and if he is in violation you absolutely need to address that with him.
I suggest addressing the roomate directly, stating he needs to take care of the pets, or give them up.
If he ignores you, give a call to the local OSPCA, and report that it looks like these cats are being neglected. Depending on how busy your OSPCA branch is, they'll usually come and investigate, and probably tell the owner he needs to take better care his cats. Hopefully the threat of having them taken away, or at the very least, a fine, will make him take care of the cats.
If, they deem it, they may take the cats away. Although, in this case, it's probably doubtful, since this isn't a 'major' case of abuse (although it boils my blood to see your roomate to treat them like this)
Regarding the OSPCA, while not a 'no-kill' place, they tend to leave euthanasia as a last case resort. Usually, its reserved for extremely aggressive feral cats, and cats who are/become very sick. Sadly, the latter is more common than I'd like, since having a bunch of cats in an enclosed space causes diseases to spread very quickly. Cats are usually then placed in quarantine, and if their condition worsens, then.... well...
WoW
Dear Satan.....
But that's off-track.
Unless the cats are exhibiting clear symptoms of disease (like worm-looking stuff in their stool or other obvious stuff), I'd just confront the roommate first. If there's real potential for a medical issue, and/or the roommate continues to be neglectful (and it will take time, and he'll still forget), then get animal control or SPCA or whatever involved.
And really it wouldn't hurt to start looking for a new living arrangement, since ultimately there might not be a whole lot you can do about this, and there's potential to lose deposit+ if the cats are causing permanent damage.