The Trials and Tribulations of Living With Our Feline Friends

When we moved into this house we installed "kitty proof latches" on all of the lower kitchen cabinet doors except for the two doors directly under the kitchen sink.  The cats were less inclined to open those doors and having latches on them is a little inconvenient.  It didn't take Zoom long to discover that those doors were vulnerable.  She'd pull them open and crawl over all the cleaning supplies and make her way to the very back of the cabinet to the left of the sink.  I knew she was doing it, but since I only stored seasonal things and candles under there I decided to look the other way and let her enjoy her little hideaway.

Last week we were going out and the cabinet door under the kitchen sink was open.  Reid decided to check on Zoom and that's when he called me,  Way in the back of the cabinet was a huge hole with insulation pulled out.

We frantically started looking for Zoom and the rest of the cats.  We were afraid they might be inside the wall.  I think the hole had been cut and patched by the previous owners and Zoom had managed to pull their patch off.  We had never noticed it way back there and when the painters painted the cabinets the patch was painted too which made it even less noticeable.

All the cats were accounted for and we temporarily barricaded the cabinet doors to keep cats out while we were gone.

When we got home we got to work.  I stuffed the insulation back into the wall and vacuumed up the mess.

It was a tight squeeze getting back there.

Zoom watched with interest from her perch.

If I was any bigger I would have had to hire a handy man to do the patch.  I guess he would have ripped out the shelf in order to get back there, but I managed to squeeze.

The first thing I did was put a screen type thing on the hole.  I've patched holes before so I knew what to do.

Zoom continued to watch with interest.

Then we brought out the can of plaster stuff (my technical term).

And I squeezed back in there and spread the plaster stuff all over the screen.

Finished!  You'll have to take my word for it.  It's kind of hard to see in this picture.

Then with Zoom still watching Reid installed "kitty proof latches" on those last two cabinet doors.

It's official...all the cabinet doors are now secure and cat proof.  Zoom will have to find another place to hang out.