KITTY CONDO
and
Spot has been adopted!

Here I am in the process of adding the inner partition and insulating the sleeping chamber. I made a mistake and had to turn the door around so that the cat enters in the small chamber then goes on into the larger insulated "bedroom". One of my units has a very low power heated pad. I had it so I just set it up. It doesn't keep the room warm just adds a tiny amout of heat. No one seems to like it any better than the other rooms.

All the cats I've rescued from outside have had trouble with frostbitten toes so I'm hoping this will prevent this. So far so good!

Cats were quite suspicious at first and did not want to go in at all. Eventually with the winter getting colder they were more willing but still got out as fast as they could if they heard any noise. Only one cat in each unit even though 2 could fit comfortably. Most of my cats are male so maybe they don't cuddle as much as I've seen the female do. Even brothers are not sharing a room. They have settled in now and feel quite safe.

Come summer I'll paint it a better colour and finish adding the little peaked roofs or shutters or whatever looks fun.

I added a penthouse unit to the top of the condo. It is insulated and has proved the most popular spot of all. There is always a cat in residence and rarely 2! I added a low wattage heating pad. It is very popular.

Quite tight for 2 grown cats but nice and cosy. They also love to sit on top and look inside the house or at the street. I think they like being higher up.

Spot is a little stray that lives on my garage. She is not allowed by my colony to come to the condo. I guess she is from a different clan. Last year she got caught in a garage for quite a long time and nearly died. I had been feeding her on the garage and when she came out she was not in any shape to fend for herself. I gave her an old cat box and she moved in. The box had insulation but was not warm. It gave her a place to survive till spring where at least she was out of the rain and wind, and had a relatively dry place to sleep.

She spent last winter in that box. During the summer she slept there only for a few hours every day. It gets quite warm and she had other places to visit. Funny though she is always on time for meals!

This fall I made her a new house. A bit larger than the previous one it promises much better conditions. Like the old one it has blue and pink foam insulation. Not so much to keep the house warm but to provide a good surface to curl up against. The door is level with the head when she is curled up and she can watch the outside through the little curtains. (I just added them after the picture was taken.) The curtains cut the wind.
Because the garage is windy, I added a covered porch to the box. She spends time there if its raining. The little overhand of the porch prevents rain from being driven in the cat house. There is also a window on the porch, just for fun. She watches birds from there. (She is quite useless as a birdcatcher fortunately) I added a heated bowl to prevent the water from freezing and a very low wattage heating pad inside. The pad is not warm enough to warm up the space but adds just a bit of comfort.

Spot has a family of her own!

My neighbour mentioned to one of her friends that Spot was available and certainly could testify to the natural good looks of the cat in question. My neighbour came to my door, got a cat carrier, and PRESTO! Spot was on her way to a new life.

Reports came in that she was transported with a minimum of yowling, spent only the minimum time in a closet assessing her new home, and has taken over the management of her new family. More info as it becomes available...