The Haunted Housewarming: Boxes, Boos & Feline Safety Inspections
October 16, 2026
The house is new, the boxes are multiplying, and Halloween has given the cats an entirely new collection of hazards to inspect.
October 2026, Volume 2, Issue 10
Where whiskers meet mischief. Curated chaos, cat-approved
The Haunted Housewarming: Boxes, Boos & Feline Safety Inspections
New house. Suspicious decorations. Moving boxes,
Halloween hazards, and cats conducting inspections without credentials.
The house is old (1954 vintage) but new. The decorations are suspicious. Management has concerns.
Technically, we have moved. The furniture is inside the new
house, the keys work, and nobody is still riding around in a moving truck. By
the strictest legal definition, this operation is complete.
By every practical definition, however, the boxes have
established permanent residency, the studio is somewhere beneath its own
contents, and I am still locating ordinary household objects through a
sophisticated system known as opening the wrong box six times.
Mika and Koji have accepted the new property as theirs. Mika
is conducting inspections. Koji is monitoring structural clearances with mixed
results. Now Halloween has added cords, dangling objects, candy, decorations,
and a front door that may open repeatedly. Management has therefore launched a
full safety review despite having no qualifications, no authority, and no
pants.
Downsizing from the old house into this one has been an
educational experience. Mostly I have learned that square footage is apparently
what kept all my shit from touching.
I made seven trips to Goodwill with things that no longer
fit, no longer made sense, or had been quietly following me from house to house
without contributing anything. The studio is still a work in progress. Supplies exist. I
know this because I paid for them. What I can't tell you is which box
currently employs them.
Meanwhile, the Blog, Newsletter, Podcast, and shop have
continued to stare at me like I personally invented deadlines. I am trying to
settle in, restore a functional workspace, and remember where I put the cable I
was holding three minutes ago.
Mika and Koji remain fully staffed as unpaid supervisors.
Their performance evaluations of me have been harsh, immediate, and conducted
entirely through body language and rapid tail lashing.
The new neighborhood came with a welcome committee. It is
furry, unscheduled, and apparently operates in shifts.
·The garage is still filled with moving-related
shit, so the car remains outside.
·Because the car remains outside, neighborhood
cats have identified it as available patio furniture.
·They climb on it, lounge on it, and leave paw
prints as proof that the inspection occurred.
·Some of the outdoor cats also watch Mika and
Koji through the windows.
·Mika and Koji watch back from inside, where the
snacks and central heating live.
I do not know which cats belong to whom, what their
arrangements are, or whether they have filed the proper paperwork. I only know
that the car now receives more feline traffic than the driveway.
Mika
Mika was nervous at first, but she handled the move better
than her brother. Once released from the carrier, she walked through the house,
stopped, and released one enormous mournful yowl in her finest cigarette voice.
It sounded like a lounge singer had just discovered the bar was out of gin.
Then she got to work. She sniffed rooms, boxes, corners,
furniture, and anything else that had crossed state lines from one Albuquerque
address to another. The professional sniffer and box inspector had entered the
building. The building was found suspicious but acceptable.
Koji
Koji took a more tactical approach. He examined the sofa,
estimated the clearance beneath it at roughly an inch and a half, considered
his own ten-to-twelve-pound body, and concluded: absolutely.
Somehow, he got under there. Getting back out was apparently
outside the scope of the original plan. I had to lift one end of the sofa and
coax him free. He then attempted the maneuver again because lessons are for
cats burdened by sound tactical judgment.
Eventually he realized nobody intended to put him back into the carrier and throw him in the car for another unauthorized ride to parts unknown. He remains lovable, loyal, and deeply committed to protecting
me from dangers he has mostly invented himself.
The Feline Department of Occupational Safety Has Notes
Halloween decorations look festive to us. To a cat, they
look like a seasonal obstacle course assembled by people who have apparently
learned nothing.
Fire and electrical nonsense
·Skip open flames where a cat can reach, jump,
swat, or knock them over. Use flameless candles when possible.
·Secure string-light and decoration cords against
walls or behind furniture. Unplug them when they are not being supervised, and
replace damaged cords instead of bargaining with electricity.
Dangling decorations and things that should not be eaten
·Keep ribbon, string, tinsel, fishing line, fake
cobwebs, elastic, and similar material out of reach. If swallowed, long
string-like material can cause a medical emergency.
·Anchor dangling decorations so they do not
become interactive toys. Remove bells, elastic loops, and small costume pieces
that can be chewed off or swallowed.
·Put breakable decorations where a cat cannot
launch them onto the floor with one thoughtful paw.
·Keep decorative plants and chewable seasonal
materials away unless you have confirmed they are safe for cats.
Candy is not a shared resource
·Keep all candy in closed containers. Chocolate
can be toxic to pets, and sugar-free products may contain xylitol. Cats also do
not need to ingest the wrapper while proving a point.
·Discard foil, cellophane, sticks, strings, and
wrappers promptly. Swallowed packaging can create choking or
intestinal-blockage risks.
·Keep glow sticks and glow jewelry away from
cats. Biting into one can cause painful mouth irritation, drooling, and
foaming.
Costumes require the cat’s cooperation
·Do not use a costume that restricts movement,
breathing, hearing, vision, grooming, or normal behavior.
·Supervise any costume and remove it immediately
if the cat freezes, struggles, hides, chews it, or otherwise votes no.
·A photograph is not worth turning your cat into
an unwilling seasonal hostage.
The front door is the real jump scare
·During trick-or-treating, keep cats in a quiet,
secure room away from the frequently opened front door.
·Give them familiar bedding, water, a litter box,
and a hiding place. Background sound can help soften repeated knocks and
doorbell noise.
·Keep cats indoors on Halloween night. Before the
evening begins, confirm that microchip and identification information is
current where applicable.
If the decoration requires three extension cords, fishing
line, an open flame, and a prayer, your cat has already identified the weak
point.
The Microphone Is Emerging From the Boxes
The Cat Whisperer Blog Podcast has not vanished. It is
temporarily trapped behind the move, the half-unpacked studio, several missing
cables, and the general post-move condition in which every object is either in
the wrong room or under something heavier than I am.
When the microphone completes its escape, the return episode
will be based on The Move, the Sofa, and the Feral Welcome Committee:
moving-day betrayal, Koji’s failed attempt to become one with the underside of
the sofa, Mika’s cigarette-voice property inspection, and the neighborhood
observers who arrived without an appointment.
October has arrived, which means the seasonal mug cabinet
has stopped pretending to be normal.
The Just Here for the Boos ceramic mug brings the proper
amount of Halloween attitude without requiring anyone to decorate the entire
kitchen or explain why there is glitter in the butter dish. It is handcrafted
and available through the Snarky Cat Boutique Seasonal Shenanigans section on
Etsy.
The workbench is still buried in moving boxes, but I have
located enough of it to confirm that it survived.
Supplies exist in theory. I am gradually restoring a
functional workspace while Mika inspects every opened box and Koji supervises
through proximity, which is his preferred management style when actual labor
may be involved.
Regular handcrafted chaos is returning one pair of scissors,
one roll of tape, and one mysteriously displaced spool of thread at a time. The
coffee remains operational. Priorities.
And so... The cats are settling in. The house is slowly becoming
functional. The studio may eventually be visible without excavation equipment.
Halloween is coming, so keep the decorations festive, the
candy secured, the doors controlled, and the cats safely on the correct side of
the nonsense.
Normal creative chaos will resume whether any of us are
ready or not.
Stay frosty, stay snarky, and never underestimate a cat with
an agenda.
Written for The Cat Whisperer Blog by Annie St. Germain Editor-in-Chief, The Scratching Post Press, and resident Cat Whisperer and chronicler at Snarky Cat Boutique.
(assisted by Mika, monitored by Koji, and authorized by absolutely no one)❤️🐾
