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[infopri]

I think I have decided to crate them, individually, with food/water/litter, in the sunroom. Both cats love the sunroom, people will probably only stand out there for a minute or two, any unfortunate events that may happen pertaining to the litter box will be dispersed quickly because of all the screens out there, and best of all, I won't worry that they will get out.

Three questions:

1) Crates are usually barred.  Are you sure the bars are close enough that the cats can't escape through the bars?  Remember that, when motivated, cats can get through some pretty tight squeezes.

2) Just in case they do manage to get out of the crates (or have "help" from some visitor's child), does the sun room have a door to the outside?  If so, you might want to put the kitties somewhere where there is still a closed door between them and the door to the outside.  (Other than that concern, though, the sunroom sounds perfect.)

3) Do your kitties flip out (fear, shyness, whatever) when there are strangers around?  If so, perhaps you can cover the crates with a towel or something (leaving the kitties a little peekhole, but covered enough to feel "protected").  Maybe then they'd go into "stealth mode" instead of caterwauling?  (You know, that quiet, waiting, watching mode they use when they are watching "prey.")  And it might discourage people from being friendly and inadvertently messing with them.

BTW, I went to an open house not long ago where a dog was crated in the mudroom off the kitchen.  Seemed to work quite well; he didn't howl or bark, and the visitors left him alone.

Good luck, both with the kitties and with selling the house!

[appleaddict]

Thanks, Infopri!

In response to your three very helpful comments:
1) Yes, the sunroom leads directly to the outside. However, I've decided to lock the crate just in case someone's child deicdes to try to play with the kitties. They are very cute, and I can understand why they would be tempted!
I'm using this one, which I think I have seen used at my vet's office. http://www.pet-dog-cat-supply-store.com/shop/index.php?page=shop-flypage-697-0ef7f5aa4306440842e7cf4aac5373f5&ps_session=e2b2fcf39ecf1322bb405813a5c2128d

So, since I've seen these crates at my vet's office, I am hoping they won't escape, though they will certainly try. I will in any event try this out with them sitting right in front of me before I leave them with strangers.

2) One of them does like to hide, with CERTAIN people. He's very inquisitive with others. One of the things I thought would be good about hte sunroom would be that I think people would only be out there for a minute. They might spend some time in the backyard, but I would think that time in the actual sunroom would be relatively brief. The cats also would not be able to hear people in the house until they actually came out into the sunroom, which I think would cut down on anxiety. To help our one kitty hide who sometimes likes to, I thought I'd try to fit in a very small kitty shelter/gym thing that we have.

Have I thought of everything? Please, more comments and concerns! We love our pets and want this to be as low-stress as possible for them.

[dr_crankypants]

Did you mention a basement?  What about giving them the run of the basement, with the sign on the door to it, asking people not to let them out? 

[appleaddict]

Did you mention a basement?  What about giving them the run of the basement, with the sign on the door to it, asking people not to let them out? 

The basement is a walkout and leads to the sunroom, which leads to the outdoors. They hate it when we lock them down here and do whatever they can to escape. That would be a great idea if it were a normal basement, though.

[drdice]

Before we put our house on the market in May, we put our three cats, their litter boxes, food and water dishes, toys, beds, etc. into the garage with a sign on both the front and back of the door to the garage requesting that people not let the cats in or out. Then we had the whole house cleaned and the carpets shampooed. No cat smell, no cat hair, and the cats had the run of the two + car garage. Must have worked, we sold the house in 11 days, and the cats are still in the garage, happy as clams. At least as far as I can tell. Now how happy they will be to drive 5 hours to a new home next month, I couldn't say.

[infopri]

I'm glad drdice resurrected this thread, which had slipped my mind.  Appleaddict, how did the open  house go?  And, equally important, how did the kitties fare??

[kaysixteen]

when we sell houses here, we use our Rottweiler, Fritzchen, to intimidate the marks into paying top dollar.

[appleaddict]

I'm glad drdice resurrected this thread, which had slipped my mind.  Appleaddict, how did the open  house go?  And, equally important, how did the kitties fare??

Hey Infopri and everyone else!

I ended up getting a large cat crate made by a company called Midwest something or other. If anyone is interested I can post the link. One of our cats ended up loving the crate, and the other one never trusted it at all and protested hugely every time I had to put him in it.

It was tall enough for me to put one of their carpet-covered kitty condos in it, which helped.

I locked both doors to the condo and put the cats on the sunporch. They seemed happy enough after showings and open houses!

At first, before the cat crate came in the mail we put both cats in one of our neighbor's upstairs bedrooms. They have a dog, but the dog never figured out that there were two cats inthe house so she didn't bark at the door. The cats knew they were in a dog's house and never really got comfortable, but atl east I knew they were safe.

And--we got an offer on the house about 5 days after it was on the market! We finally closed a week ago. All ended very well!

[appleaddict]

Here's the cat crate I got:
http://www.petcratesdirect.com/cat-playpens.html, #132.

[infopri]

So glad to hear everything worked out, appleaddict.  And thanks for the crate link.  I can't imagine I'll ever need a cat crate, but if I ever do, this one looks great!!

Have you already moved?  If not, I hope it goes well!

[appleaddict]

Aye, I have moved, and it sucked. Big time. We're pretty much settled now, though. Thank goodness!