Cat Drama

For the past few months, we've been dealing with a cat crisis. Keep reading for the full story...

Note: MAJOR TMI warning for this story, it gets gross.

Since buying our house last December, we've discovered a range of cats living in houses in our complex. One of them, a black fluffy tomcat, seems to be a bit of a troublemaker. He's extremely friendly with strange humans but gets into fights with the local cats.

To make matters worse (don't worry, it gets worser), we're pretty sure he's been living part-time inside our roof! We bought a ladder, but we need a longer one to get in the ceiling to look around and potentially seal off the gap where he gets in and out. If you know someone who specialises in... this type of problem... please send me their details!

Okay, now for the real meat of this story. Last warning to tune out if you need to.

In September, the night before we flew to Gold Coast for the national Barbershop festival, we were standing in the living room when suddenly a grate in the ceiling started dripping... and dripping... the tomcat emptied his entire god-damned bladder in the ceiling right above our TV and stereo!

As you can imagine, it was a nightmare to clean up, especially while we were meant to be packing. We tried to put some measures in place to prevent further issues, but there wasn't much more we could do. We flew off the next morning, for a whole two weeks. It was tough not knowing what we would come back to.

It was stressful for us for sure, but even more so for our cats. Can you imagine how they must have felt? The enemy isn't just surrounding us but above us! In every direction! Shut the doors! Bar the windows! So that's what they did... At least, the only way a cat knows how...

Percy began marking the walls obsessively, coming back even to the same spots minutes later. It was yet another nightmare to clean up after him as well. We confined him to the bathroom for our sanity and his own. He could feel safe in there. Since then, we've also medicated him to lower his stress even further and as a result, he's been allowed to roam the house again, but the tomcat is still an ongoing problem.

Our current plan of action is to contact the ranger to see if they can help us - the cat needs to be kept indoors, and desexed if he hasn't been already - plug the hole in our roof, and shoo him away when he gets close, but at times it feels hopeless. Please let me know if you have any suggestions!