The Move, the Sofa, and the Feral Welcome Committee

Well, we moved. The furniture arrived, the movers left, and technically we now live in the new house. I say “technically” because there are still boxes everywhere, my studio looks like a supply closet lost a bar fight, and I’m beginning to suspect that half my belongings were designed specifically to fit the house I no longer live in.

It’s been around two weeks since official moving day, but the place still looks like Hurricane Betty just came through. Especially my studio. I cannot believe the shit I have accumulated and the fact that it’s just not all going to fit in this little room. Ugh…

The cats, naturally, have opinions. They were not consulted on the relocation, the floor plan, or the questionable decision to replace familiar territory with a place that smells like absolutely nobody they know.

The Sofa Incident

Koji’s first order of business was to find somewhere safe. Understandable. Moving is loud, unfamiliar, and full of people carrying your entire world out the door. Unfortunately, Koji selected the space beneath the sofa.

This is a roughly ten-to-twelve-pound black cat. The sofa has about an inch and a half of clearance. By every law of physics available to the average human, that arrangement should have been impossible.

Koji disagreed. Somehow, the boy squeezed himself underneath. Getting back out, however, was apparently an advanced elective he had neglected to take.

So there I was, lifting one end of the sofa and coaxing my frightened, stubborn little idiot back into daylight, explaining that his considerable “bigness” was not conducive to crawling beneath couches. He tried it more than once. Apparently the first rescue did not adequately convey the engineering problem.

And yes, I laughed. But I also understood. To Koji, that tiny gap looked like an emergency bunker. He didn’t know yet that nobody was going to stuff him back into a carrier, load him into another truck, and disappear with the furniture. He needed time to learn that this unfamiliar place was not the next stop in an ongoing hostage situation.

Lesson learned: before giving a scared cat the run of a new room, check the furniture gaps. A legitimate hiding place, like an accessible carrier with familiar bedding or a sturdy covered bed, is a much better option than dismantling your living room to retrieve twelve pounds of panic.

One Complaint, Then a Full Inspection

Mika took a different approach. She sauntered down the hallway, surveyed the rooms, and let loose one enormous, mournful yowl in that remarkable cigarette voice of hers. It sounded like someone who’d been smoking unfiltered cigarettes since 1958 had just discovered the hotel had lost her reservation.

Then she got to work.

Mika is the professional sniffer in this outfit, box inspector, and unpaid head of quality control. New room? Sniff it. New corner? Sniff it. Box in the wrong place? Inspect it immediately and, if possible, climb inside. She was nervous too, but her response was essentially to lodge one formal objection and then audit the property.

Cats rely heavily on familiar scents and predictable surroundings. A new house presents them with a ridiculous amount of information all at once. Some cats hide until the world makes sense again. Others, like Mika, start gathering evidence. Neither response means a cat is doing the adjustment process wrong.

Four Goodwill Trips and Counting

Meanwhile, I’m working full-time and attempting to rebuild a functioning studio in a house with less usable storage and working space than I thought I had. This has turned unpacking into an elaborate game of “Where the hell am I supposed to put THAT?”

I’ve already made FOUR trips to Goodwill. Four. At this rate, the donation attendants are going to start greeting me by name and asking whether I’d like my usual unloading spot.

The studio remains a mess. There are displaced belongings, half-decided storage arrangements, and boxes that seem to multiply when I’m not looking. The garage is still full of moving debris and assorted household shit, which means the car can’t go inside. Apparently moving the furniture was merely Phase One of a project with no published completion date.

Mika considers the remaining boxes a welcome inventory of inspection opportunities. Koji is doing better now that the house has stopped behaving like an active moving operation. I, on the other hand, would like to find my workspace before the next geological era.

The Neighborhood Welcome Committee

And because an unfinished garage apparently wasn’t enough, the local feral-cat committee has discovered my exposed car.

They climb on it. They lounge on it. They leave little paw-print signatures on it. My vehicle has become neighborhood-cat patio furniture, and nobody thought to ask the person making the payments.

They also watch Mika and Koji through the windows. So now the indoor cats have a new reality show: Who Are These People and Why Are They On Our Property? The outside cats get a front-row seat, too. There’s no need to invent a dramatic territorial showdown. Watching is plenty interesting all by itself.

For now, the window is where that relationship stays. Mika and Koji are indoor cats, and unfamiliar outdoor cats aren’t an invitation for introductions. I’m keeping doors and window screens secure, especially while deliveries and unpacking are still happening. Curiosity is one thing. An accidental escape is an entirely different and much less amusing blog post.

What Actually Helps

The biggest favor you can do a cat during a move is make the chaos smaller. While people are carrying things in and out, a quiet, secure room with familiar bedding, food, water, and a litter box gives them somewhere predictable to land. Once the doors stop swinging open and the noise settles, they can explore a little at a time, on their own terms.

Familiar routines matter too. Meals at roughly the usual times, known smells, and safe places to retreat help the new house become less of a mystery. I’ve learned that “let them explore” does not mean “make them inspect every room immediately,” and it definitely does not mean “allow Koji to conduct structural testing beneath the sofa.”

I’m also paying attention to the unfunny stuff: whether they’re eating, drinking, using the litter box, and gradually coming out of hiding. A cat who won’t eat, seems ill, has trouble urinating, or stays severely distressed needs veterinary advice, not a pep talk about how nice the new kitchen is.

Mostly, though, they need time. Mika and Koji are exploring, inspecting, watching the neighbors, and slowly figuring out that this place is ours now. There’s no universal schedule for that. Each cat gets there in their own peculiar way.

Home, More or Less

So here we are. The studio is still chaos. The garage remains unusable. The car is apparently a timeshare for neighborhood cats. Mika continues to inspect every box as though I’ve been smuggling contraband across state lines, and Koji has finally begun to accept that the sofa is furniture, not a panic room.

We’re not settled. Not even close. But Mika and Koji are starting to act like this is home, which is more than I can say for the contents of my studio.

I figure we’ll know we’ve officially arrived when every little noise stops sounding, to them, like the beginning of another carrier ride.

Until then, the cats supervise. I unpack. And somebody needs to tell the neighborhood committee to get its furry ass off my car.

Ciao,

The snarkiest cat…

The Cat Whisperer Blog
Snarky Cat Boutique

Written for the Cat Whisperer Blog by Annie St. Germain, Editor in Chief, and her Kitty chroniclers Mika and Koji at Snarky Cat Boutique.

Want more kitty snark delivered straight to your inbox like a cat hairball on your pillow? Sign up for my monthly-ish newsletter – The Scratching Post Press, and remember to Subscribe to The Cat Whisperer Blog so you don’t miss a toe bean.

Snarky Cat Boutique — Powered by coffee, creativity, cat hair and cusswords.

Be sure and check out The Cat Whisperer Blog Podcast YouTube channel. Each week I bring selected posts from The Cat Whisperer Blog at SnarkyCatBoo.com to life in audio. Stay tuned for real-life cat stories, feline humor, cat behavior insights, practical cat care tips, and the everyday adventures of my two quirky rescue cats, Mika and Koji. Every episode is paired with photos that bring the stories to life.

Here’s the link: The Cat Whisperer Blog Podcast