It all began one fall day while I was away from home. I usually leave a window open a bit so that my cat can escape if she needs to. However, it also let's others in.
At first there were only subtle signs but as the days went bye those signs began to get more and more. There was no way that my cat could eat as much food as what was disappearing from her dish. I had a strange animal in the house. How do I get this animal out of my house. I crossed my fingers and hoped that it was a stray cat and not any other animal. In time this proved correct.
I have a dilemma, How do I go about getting this animal from the basement. The basement door is also the pantry door and this is situated directly behind the bedroom and beside the living room. I had to figure out how to do this without scaring the cat so it won't come up out of the basement while I was there.
Okay, I put my thinking cap on, there are a few things I could try. The first one was to hide behind the cellar or pantry door. After a few nights of standing as still as I possibly could I crossed that off the list. The cat, by this time I knew for certain it was a cat, would sit at the top of the stairs but come no further and if I moved, down it would go. There were lots of nooks and crannies to hide in. The basement was not the full size of the house so it could slip into the farthest reaches of under the house.
Next I thought of starving it, but then it would stink up the whole house, no that was no good. Maybe a few pellets from the pellet gun would scare it, nope it didn't. Time for the big guns so to speak. I went in search of one of those animal cages that you use to catch animals in. It however, smelled of skunk. In went the food and water and periodically I would set it in different places to try and entice the cat. It was smart, I need to tell you that. Either it knew it was a trap or it didn't like the skunk smell. It may have entered the cage, signs of the food had been eaten. Good grief, it knew enough not to step on the plate to spring the door down encaging it.
I'm not through yet. My cat, called Chrissy, had her food sitting beside the washing machine which was not that far from the pantry door. I moved her food and water to the furthest reach of the house that I could find. I started waiting up at night, but that slippery little devil outwitted me everytime. Finally one night I managed to tiptoe out from the bedroom to catch it at the food dish. That cat litterly flew across the living room into the kitchen and down the steps to the basement before I could even get to the kitchen door. I guess I moved to slow. After a few tries of this I lay in bed and thought and thought to myself that that cat was not going to get the best of me.
It dawned on me one night that if I drilled a hole in the bedroom wall I could probably put a string through it and tie it to the cellar door. Good try so far. After finding a way to make the hole and get the string through the hole, I discovered that cellar door would not close tight unless I really pushed it. Hmm, now what? Okay that can be fixed, all I had to do was to trim a little off the bottom of door and that is what I did. Now the door closed quietly and softly. With all the lights off in the house I couldn't see when the cat came up so I started leaving night lights on and moved the food to an area where I could see it from my bed.
No cat was going to out wit me. After waiting a short time, there it was, sneaking up to the food dish. As quietly and as gently as I could I pulled on the cord to shut the cellar door. It now had no escape route. It naturally tried to get into the basement and with that avenue shut off it then tore through the house to end up under the bed. I opened both the doors to the outside and after a few swats with the broom, out the door it escaped. I guess Chrissy will now have to take her chances being cooped up indoors.
Anyone want to help clean up the mess in the basement?
