Managing the Purr-fectly Busy Household: Life with 11 Cats

When I decided I wanted to start a blog, one of the reasons was to write about what it's truly like living with a horde of cats and a husband who is mostly not okay with the number of cats we have, but secretly loves them.

Gene works full-time from home. I work three jobs and have a busy social life that keeps me out of the house 80% of the time. It has always been that I am responsible for the cats, with the exception of medications. There's a lot that falls to me for their care, which is no big deal. At some point, I realized to be halfway successful in keeping everything in an almost happy harmony, I needed to have an agenda for my own house chores. Read on for a typical workday in my life!

One of my jobs—house sitting—keeps me away from home the most. When I'm scheduled for house sitting, I still go to my other two jobs; my home base is just a different place. I move in (quite literally—with everything I need from food, clothes, snacks, books, and crafting supplies). This means I need to balance my house full of cats.

I'll start my day caring for my house-sitting pets, which is usually a lot easier than my own cats. Then, I head to my job at the chiropractor's office for a few hours in the morning. Once my morning ends, I head straight to my weekly dog drop-in. I'll spend a bit of time with Cricket, letting her out, getting love, and giving her a treat. Then I start on my personal household/life chores. (Hello, checklist in my head!)

Arriving at my house, the first few things are always the same. Bathroom, snack, drink, then focus on my list (and really try to stay focused!). First up is a combination of litter box duties and starting a load of laundry. I need to wash puppy pads at least once a day, so I gather them up from the dining room, try my best to avoid eye contact with Smokey, and start a load. I'll head to the laundry room litter box row. Scoop, scoop, scoop, chat with supervisor Dobby, scoop more, tell Dobby to stop throwing litter out of the box, and lastly sweep or vacuum the floor. Only for Dobby to immediately throw litter around like confetti...why did I even sweep the floor?!?

Back to the dining room - I deal with the floor - sweep/vacuum and on a really busy day, Swiffer. Sometimes I get distracted (hello Smokey) and forget to put the puppy pads back down for Clara. I usually realize this as I'm ready to leave and end up going back to mop the floor - with the real mop and a hot soapy/vinegar water mix. By far, that is usually the quickest part of my home routine.

I'll switch over to the living room—which I do a little more. Pick up cat toys—seriously, they like to take all their toys out even if they don't play with them. Straighten the chairs and couch. Top off the food and water bowls. We got rid of the automatic water bowls—so that's a time saver, no more intense cleaning of the filters/fountain part! On to changing or retucking the sheets to keep the furniture clean. (My biggest pet peeve—sheets twisted and crooked and cushions all haphazard.) At this point, things start to go downhill and crazy real fast. Smokey is tangled up in everything I'm doing now. She's under the sheets, pulling them out as I tuck them, crying and trying to climb onto me so I can hold her. If I choose to ignore her, she decides to cause chaos—knocking stuff over, jumping on me, and any other antics. One of these days, I'll bite the bullet and buy a baby swaddler for her.

I move upstairs at this point, which theoretically has the least amount of work. There are only 2 litter boxes, 2 food bowls, and 2 water bowls. Somehow, this is usually more work. Jasper's kingdom (aka the bathroom) is a quick job—so long as he hasn't peed on the floor—scoop his litter, change puppy pads. His favorite water bowl is a bubbler that has to be cleaned frequently and is a pain. He is a messy drinker; more water ends up outside of the bowl than in his mouth. He's not much better with his food, and I'm not sure why. He has the only automatic food bowl, so he only gets a tiny bit of food at a time, but somehow still manages to spill food all over the floor. Most times, he just supervises from his tower, but sometimes he will wander with me looking for pets.

I move on to the hallway litter box - always a hot mess. It gets used the most by everyone. Vera prefers to be upstairs with her favorite human Gene - so it's convenient for her. Now that Clara likes to hang out with Gene, she uses the puppy pads to do all her business. What does that mean for me? Picking up her poop with paper towels and throwing the puppy pads in the wash. Then I can go about scooping and sweeping (my cats think it's a game to see how much litter they can throw out of the box).

Next, I head to the bedroom, which just has a food bowl but somehow manages to be a mess. This is the favorite food bowl as it's the tastiest food in the house. All the food downstairs is prescription food for kidney disease. At any given time, there could be 3-4 cats eating out of this bowl at one time, which leads to the "grab a mouthful, drop some on the floor" method, allowing everyone to get some food and not hold up the process. They waste a lot of food; as much as I try to let it be, I have to clean it up every few days. Sometimes Dobby will clean it up for me, as she likes to eat right off the floor, but usually, she waits till I pull the vacuum out to start eating the floor food.

In Gene's office, there is a water fountain—it gets used frequently but requires less cleaning than Jasper's. It's a quick rinse and fill back up for that. His office is mostly cat hair and dander, as all the cats like to spend time with him when he's working.

That, in a nutshell, is my midday break with 11 cats. If I stick to that, it's a happy, cat-filled house most days, and they all are excited to see me. In their own ways, they each let us know if they aren't satisfied with the cleaning. Some of them are a bit more obnoxious when things aren't up to their standards.

Till our tails cross again,

Mel