Pros and Cons of Having a Garage Cat

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When I had three cats, just about the time I was ready to go to bed, they became full of energy and wanted to run and play and hunt. This is less than ideal when you have to be up to work at 6 a.m. I quickly learned to feed them in the evening because they would eat then get sleepy and none of them would whine to be let out. I also moved their food, water and kitty litter into the garage along with the supplies needed to care for them, including food, hairball medicine and flea remedies.

My solution to the problem was to leave the garage window open a crack wide enough that they could crawl through it and to have a pet door installed leading from the garage into the house.

This worked primarily because we could trust that no one would break into the garage and steal the tools since we lived in a neighborhood where two police officers lived.

Pros of Having a Garage Cat

The best part of my scheme, using the garage as their way of getting into the house was that my cats adored their freedom and so did my husband and I. Whenever we left to go on vacation, we just needed to have someone feed them and we were free from worry about their care. The smell of the kitty litter was kept out of the main house as was their awful smelling food. I slept well at night since I never had to get up and let them in and out of the house. The cats weren’t very comfortable with having the pet door, but once they were taught to use it, everything went well.

Cons of Having a Garage Cat

Well, for several years this scheme worked really well, at least until the raccoons showed up. The raccoons ended up crawling through the same window and eating the cat’s food. This would have been okay, except the next thing that happened was they killed two of my cats. Now all of my peace of mind disappeared. The remaining cat would end up getting stuck on the roof because one of the raccoons was around and I’d be up letting it into the house.  And they ended up tracking cat litter around the garage and into the house through the pet door.

Then, when we went to sell the house we had work to do. First, the cats left scratches on the siding from crawling up and down to get in. Next, we found out that a pet door on a doorway leading into the house was against fire code.

Well, if you live in a tamer neighborhood than ours, you too may decide that the problems were worth the benefits. Either way, if you’re considering travel and want an easy care solution to happy cats, this worked, for awhile.