Cats From Hell
April 25th, 2008 by Sean Whaling
I have nothing against cats or people who enjoy them as pets. Well, maybe I should qualify that, people who have less than two cats seem okay. My question is this: Have you ever been to an open house where you’re met at the front door with the wafting odor of kitty litter?
My wife and I took a look last weekend at this beautiful, 4 bedroom Victorian on a half acre. From the outside the house was perfect. But from the second we stepped inside our senses were assaulted by the unmistakable odor of “cats.”
The Listing Agent noticed our wrinkled noses and immediately pointed out that the sellers were offering a $5,000 allowance for “replacing the carpets.” Hmmmmm. I watch HGTV sometimes. I know there are people out there on “Property Ladder” and other similar shows who are able to look past all the gross stuff to see a home’s inner beauty. I guess I’m not one of them. I wanted to leave right away. But my wife is far too polite to spin around and walk out. She’ll waste time making small talk and looking in closets with the best of them. So there I stood not wanting to go any further than the foyer but seeing as my wife had already disappeared with the agent, I decided to poke around.
My first (and only) stop was a half closed door near the entry. The light was on so I pushed the door all the way open to discover a huge, black-eyed tabby perched innocently on top of the washing machine. It freaked me out! This cat was enormous and looking at me as if to say, “Enter this room and I’ll rip your face off.” As I turned to leave, I accidentally kicked over a water bowl sending it spilling into you guessed it, the cat’s litter box! Imagine my surprise when a second cat, who I didn’t realize was actually USING the litter box at the time, jumped out, ran between my legs and out the front door.
The agent noticed all of this and came quickly back towards me. “You didn’t just let Thor out did you?” she asked. (Like I was playing with the cat and decided we’d have more fun outside). “NO!” I protested. “I knocked over the water dish and it just ran out.”
“This is bad.” said the agent. “King and Thor are indoor cats. We have to find him.”
Like I said, I really have nothing against cats, but to spend my Saturday afternoon looking for Thor seemed ridiculous. Luckily, he hadn’t wandered too far. We saw him right away sitting next to the agent’s car, hind leg stretched up towards the sky giving his private area a good licking. You know what, on second thought, cats are kind of gross.
So what’s the moral of this story? Simple: If you want to sell your house, especially in a buyer’s market like we have now, consider getting rid of the kitty box and removing the cats. And for anyone who loves cats and totally disagrees with me, there’s a beautiful 4 bedroom Victorian in West Austin you should check out!
