flaringshutter's Profile

Oh boy, I could go on forever on this topic.

We got Max as a kitten and he lived at my parents' house. I moved out soon after we adopted him, and my mom worked all day, but my dad was disabled so he spent time with Max pretty much 24/7. When my father passed away in 2006, we inherited Max.

As a shelter kitty (possibly feral), he was already neurotic. Having to adjust to an entirely new home, without my father, he became exponentially more neurotic.

Max was not ever socialized, so he hates strangers with a vengeance - but he's not one to run and hide. He will just stand his ground, yowl and hiss like the dickens. If you get too close he will bite and scratch, rather than let you by. We have to put him in the bathroom when we have company, or he'll try to eat them!

He loves to go on walks on the leash but since he hates strangers, half the walk is spent hissing and stalking around grumpily. The other half is spent gnawing on as much grass as he can possibly fit in his mouth. We've warned the neighbors.

He also eats string (like a couple of other commenters mentioned) so I have to be very careful about my sewing notions. And anything rubber - rubber bands, headphone wires, bracelets, swimming goggles - you name it, he's chewed it. Recently he learned to open closet doors - so now, everything has to be hidden in drawers!

Besides that, he loves to be petted but only on his terms. He is notorious for spinning around and swiping with no notice. Now we anticipate it and we've learned the warning signs. We both have quite a few scars.

We've bought him expensive toys but he vastly prefers cardboard boxes and twist ties. I did make him a "cat house" out of cardboard boxes, cut some windows with a box cutter, and he loves that. I make him a new one when it gets too dusty and chewed up.

We tried desperately to teach him to stop jumping on our bed, but that never worked. Now we close the door at night. When we first tried that he scratched and yowled outside the door, so we bought one of those compressed air motion sensor SSScat units to aim down the hallway, and that did the trick.

He's not a litter kicker, but he does vacate the box like his tail is on fire, scattering litter EVERYWHERE. I couldn't keep up with the cleaning! So we got an unused Roomba from a relative and parked it in the bathroom, where the box is. Every day at 5 pm it circles the room and sucks up the mess.

Many times my fiancee has told me to GET RID OF THAT DAMN CAT! But I know no one will put up with him. He'll end up in a shelter, and they will euthanize him immediately because he is unfriendly. So we've learned to shape our home and life around his insane behavior.

Even though he's a neurotic turdface most of the time, we do love him. He's completely devoted to us and craves our attention, following us around (even to the toilet), talking to us constantly, trying to wiggle onto our laps all the time. We just couldn't give him up.

We painted our walls a slightly more "spring" green color than these photos - a bit brighter, less kelly green. We didn't do the whole room, just one large wall with windows. I couldn't be happier! It makes our dark furniture look so classic and exotic. It brings color into the room and actually opens it up. My father-in-law tried to convince us to cut it half-and-half with white, but we decided not to listen. It was a great decision. The experiment was so successful, we painted two walls in our bedroom bright yellow and one wall of our office a rich chocolate. Hooray for some COLOR!

We're in California, and we're on the second floor so our house is more often too hot than anything approaching cold. I don't think we would have too much of a problem with the concrete being cold. Plus, we like rugs. :)

I'll definitely keep in mind the tip about looking at a contractor's previous work. And the HGTV tip, too!

Thanks everyone for your help!