stupid fucking cat

March 24, 2005 9:59 AM

How do I keep my one-year-old cat from making a racket outside my bedroom door in the mornings?

She doesn't cry much, but she's really into scratching at the door and hurling her body against it. We can't keep the door open or she'll knock crap off of shelves in the bedroom all night long. Getting up to feed or greet or yell at her doesn't seem to work, either; she'll start up again shortly. I need some sleep in the mornings. Help.

posted by Item to pets & animals (21 comments total)

I'm a pushover, so take this with a grain of salt but I see two choices: secure your crap (with quake putty, for instance) and let her come in; or close her up somewhere else in the house (laundry room, spare bedroom, etc.).

("natasha" is the most hilarious tag I've seen today.)
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 10:06 AM on March 24, 2005

How I Beat This: whenever my cat would make a loud noise or do something to wake us up (like jump on the bed or play with our feet) I would find her, pick her up, go back to bed and cuddle her like a teddy bear. Of course, the cat hates it. She's getting her attention but she realized that sometimes she doesn't want that much attention. After a couple weeks of this we now have a cat that is still very affectionate but leaves us alone at night.
posted by neustile at 10:13 AM on March 24, 2005

Having frequented the cat forum since I got my cat from the shelter a year and half ago the only solution seems to be to ignore her until she quits. This might take a while and it has to be 110% consistent. You get up 1 time out of a 100 and she will try again because she will remember it worked once...

/Peter
posted by Ferrari328 at 10:14 AM on March 24, 2005

I would get up when she does it and shoot her with a water pistol. Negative reinforcement worked pretty well with my cats. It doesn't hurt them but MAN do they hate it.
posted by bcwinters at 10:22 AM on March 24, 2005

Thick double sided masking tape in the area that she scratches. Absolute best working cat annoyance solution ever. My cats stopped practically overnight, they hate the sensation of their paws being stuck. Depending on the cat you may need some heavy duty tape, and you should obviously consider whether it will affect the paint/surface of the door in question, but try it if you can because it was 100% effective for me. And you don't even have to get out of bed.
posted by fire&wings at 10:29 AM on March 24, 2005

I second the "too much love" approach. Either the cat will hate it and run away and not like the bedroom or she'll become your own living stuffed animal who will tolerate anything (aka my cat), which is pretty fun too.
posted by picklebird at 10:31 AM on March 24, 2005

We used a squirt gun with great success. Kind of awkward shooting a squirt gun at 5am at a cat but it only took a couple of "treatments" for it to work.
posted by SparkyPine at 11:03 AM on March 24, 2005

shoot her with a water pistol

I recommend a plant sprayer/mister rather than a water pistol, unless you really need to intervene at a distance.
posted by WestCoaster at 11:04 AM on March 24, 2005

I once read a suggestion that you leave a turned-on vac cleaner outside the door and snake the power cord under the door to your side. When s/he starts scratching, plug in the vac to scare the bejesus out of him/her.

IMHO this has the disadvantage of scaring the bejesus out of me in my half-asleep capacity but perhaps you don't have to do it much.
posted by phearlez at 12:02 PM on March 24, 2005

Take a vacuum cleaner. Turn it on, but leave it unplugged. Leave the vacuum outside your closed bedroom door, and run the cord under the door. When the show starts in the morning, plug in the vacuum cleaner. Listen to the cat run away and break something in another part of the house. Repeat as necessary.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:07 PM on March 24, 2005

Also if she's only a year old, she will calm down in a year or so. My cat is VERY HIGH ENERGY, but now at 3 he is nothing compared to when he was 1. I swear he never slept at all as a baby, but gradually he slept with us, woke up later and later to nock things off the bedside table to wake us, and now he mostly sleeps through the night.

Also, do you always leave food out for her? Cats get hungry very early in the morning. I also support ignoring her, and if that doesn't work, give her 5-10 minutes in the bathroom to calm down (that's what the vet says, for my cat it took about 20 minutes for him to get the message).
posted by scazza at 12:12 PM on March 24, 2005

Also with the sprayer: if you engage her she will think she's winning and waking you up, thus you're only encouraging her. My cat to this day will jump up and down from the table after being sprayed, excited that I'm now awake. Use the spray bottle during the day to get her to stop being bad, but in the morning it is no use.
posted by scazza at 12:15 PM on March 24, 2005

Years ago, we had the same problem. I'd get up and lock the cat in the back room, so the cat (using cat logic, I guess) would wake us up and then hide under the bed.

Wish I knew about the double-sided tape. That sounds useful.
posted by Daddio at 12:22 PM on March 24, 2005

Spend every weekend making sure the cat cannot fall asleep when it wants to. Scratch and hurl yourself at its preferred sleeping spot, mess up its litterbox, play with its toys, etc. Be sure to ask the cat, "How do you like it when I do this?" every time you interact with it. If the cat is trainable at all, eventually it will get the picture. </passiveAggressive>
posted by Fezboy! at 1:01 PM on March 24, 2005

Try giving your cat a vigorous play session at night, and then feed it just when you go to bed. This may be enough to get him full and tired and willing to sleep.

For our cat, the above advice plus growing a bit older was the only thing that worked, and even now at almost five years old he'll occasionally give us a miserable night (he likes to knock things off shelves). He learned how to deal with tape without getting entangled in it, and I agree that the squirter at night just reinforces his attention-seeking behavior. When he's bad at night (which I define as knocking pictures off shelves--anything else I just ignore as best I can) I pick him up and carry him to the basement steps and close the door.
posted by handful of rain at 1:21 PM on March 24, 2005

Instead of scratching, my cat would mew on the other side of the door. I kept a stack of paperbacks by my bed, and would toss one at the door when she started in. It startled her just enough to get her to stop after a while, and it didn't take much coordination for sleepy me.
posted by frykitty at 2:16 PM on March 24, 2005

Our two are coming up on two years old. As others have said, this will wear out its fun over time. However, kitties are creatures of habit, so ours are up at 6am even if it's Saturday. (It's totally not their fault; can't hold them responsible for distinguishing the weekend from the week.) When they were younger, we made sure they got lots of play in the evenings, which definetly helped. It's not a lot of comfort now, but the knocking of things off the shelves will stop as she gets older, and she will start sleeping at night, too. Ours now sleep on the bed with us, like really small, crazy dogs.

In the interim, the vacuum idea sounds really great. During the Crazy Kitten Period in our house, we hurled shoes. YMMV. If you use the watergun, the trick is that they can't actually realize it's you; it has to seem llike an Act of the All Knowing Cat-Squirting Being. This requires being sneaky. Best of luck.
posted by Medieval Maven at 3:34 PM on March 24, 2005

I adopted two adult cats and I think their previous humans used the squirt bottle method. One of the kitties is very afraid when I point a camera in her general direction. So like Medieval Maven suggests, make sure the cat doesn't associate you with the squirting or it might get camera shy.
posted by birdherder at 6:31 PM on March 24, 2005

On the advice of someone on some cat forum, I actually took advice similar to FezBoy!'s. (!) After getting home from work, I'd do what I could to keep my cat from napping until my bedtime. After a couple days, she adjusted her schedule and started sleeping through the night.
posted by klarck at 7:01 PM on March 24, 2005

Mostly what others have said
-- leave some food out last thing before going to sleep
-- if s.f.cat annoys you in the morning, lock it in a faraway room, resume sleeping
-- never ever feed cat very first thing in the morning. "Oh??? Kitty wants brunch? Okay, we can provide.."

the vacuum cleaner idea is awesome.
posted by Aknaton at 9:02 PM on March 24, 2005

I recommend the plant mister. Also, there's a great product called "Paws Away!" that's a much-improved version of double-sided tape. (There's no contact/purchasing information on the package; they just mention the Paw Project website. OK, it appears to have been manufactured by Cosmic Pet Products, but isn't displayed on their website. I hope I can find the stuff again!!) My stupid cat likes to scratch underneath doors, but he won't if this is around.

I've read that cats really hate sheets of aluminum foil -- if they're prone to jumping onto shelves/counters, try laying a large piece of foil over the area. (They either hate the sound it makes, or maybe the feel of it underneath their paws? I've never tried this method.)
posted by oldtimey at 9:30 PM on March 24, 2005