Moving House - Best way to do it...

[Millys Mum]

Liz, you should rent out a holiday room, all us loons on here would pay to stay a week in your crazy house!   

[Liz]

All I'm prepared to say is we will never move again as we have our ideal house it has everything we ever wanted and the kids love it and we work very hard to pay the rather large mortgage we now have having worked to have our last house mortagae free - 10 years but no hols just an ever expanding cat family, the mortgage is a hell of a shock and now have to pay it off double quick!

[CurlyCatz]

 Liz   
rather you than me hun but i hope you are enjoying aberdeenshire, its not too bad i suppose 

[Liz]

Lynn in answer to your question - 6 in cat boxes in the back seat of the car, dogs in boot of car and my darling Sweetie on the front seat in her leopard bed - she is claustraphobic in a cat box and she was in her harnes which she ditched at the 20 mile mark stage and sat as good as gold all the rest of the way including picking up the house keys in the centre of Aberdeen!

The rest were paired up a where possible or in 3's and the unhandlable in their crush cages in a transit van with hubby - neurotic ragdoll sat in the front with him and despite being drugged talked the whole way!

This sort of thing not for the feint hearted we had all of them in one room - well did have a dressing room and shower room so the house could be packed around them - we did the last 2 rooms the night before as the packers left us the boxes and wardrobes!

[deniseb90]

Good luck becky!!  Sarah told me you looked at a house round the corner from me -so I'm available to cat sit, etc!!!

Dx

[CurlyCatz]

did you hire a lorry Liz or how an earth did you manage to actually transport ?

[Liz]

Moving our 37 purrballs and the 2 dogs was like a military operation as we have 20 ferals, 16 domestics and a neurotic ragdoll, so we took vets advice and tranqulised all bar 6 - aged 20, 16, 15, 10, 2 at 7 and also gave the dogs tablets to.

We had an area prepared in our new house which was 150 miles hence the drugging for us and as some of the ferals are at best unhandlable it was the best option.

All moved really well and had they not broken a window as it was a nice day things would have gome well - we took 5 months to trap the 30 who went awol and all are now living the life of riley and we have 22 indoor/outdoor and 15 grounded by our choice!

We did loose our FIV feral Holly 10 weeks after we moved and our deaf BC is now at the bridge to but we have gained another former feral and have 2 in taming proces.

If in doubt put them in the cattery for a couple of days, unpack the boxes then bring them to their new home in to one room with all their smells and litter tray and play it by their reaction its peace of mind for the first couple of days just in case you leave the door open by mistake.

Good luck with the move and get the feliway plugged in and enjoy the new space with them

[Tiggy's Mum]

I agree with the others, if you don't have a spare room to shut them in then they would probably be safer at your Mum's.  I would only have them in one room at your Mum's though, it may be a bit confusing going to a whole new house on day one then the next day having a completely different new house to get used to.

I wouldn't bring them to the new house until at least one room was set up ready for them. Whenever I moved with Tiggy I kept her in one (empty) room and then when the house was unpacked and ready at the other end brought her to the new one.  I've been lucky in that all my moves have been local and I've had two houses for the day so I could leave her safely at the old house until we'd unpacked at the new house.

[lynne]

Moved house myself 3 weeks ago.  We locked Ziggy in the spare room whilst we packed up the van, left him with a litter and his box/blanket, water etc... and he slept all day.  Then transported him to new house when we had un packed the other end.

I was going to take him to my Mums, but luckily we had all day to move out.

If no room to lock cats in, then yes, i think your Mums would be best idea.

good luck with the move!
Lynne

[Team Svartalfheims]

Yep I'd agree with what others have said, take them to your mum's for the day or pop them in a cattery so they are out of the way and can't get themselves into mischief. No doubt the cats will love spending a day being spoilt by their grandma.

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

If you don't have a room to put them out of the way I'd take them to your mums for the day.  If they're running around when you pack up they may get upset and run off somewhere and hide or get lost (or packed in a tea chest!).  Probably best if they're out of the way while you actually move.

[CurlyCatz]

when i moved house i had everything ready packed to be put in the van then before we started carting it out i took seb and fraser to my grannys so there was no chance of escapees.

[Sabrina (Auferstehen)]

I wouldn't let them run around too much while you're packing/moving things outside.

Put mine in a room that was already clear when we moved last year and then once done transferred her to the new place and stuck her in the bedroom until we were finished.

I almost lost a cat once because he decided to curl up in the smallest box possible and I could not find him, eventually we did (4 hours later) and just couldn't believe he fit into that box.

[x Beckie x (Buffy)]

Hey everyone - The oh half and i have put in an application for a house this weekend so fingers crossed if everything goes through then we will be moving within the next couple of weeks. If this is the case, what is the best way to go about moving the cats. Should i just leave them running around the house etc while we load the stuff into the van ( we will be doing it ourselves with the van from work) or should i take them to my mums for the day then go and collect them and take them up afterwards. Im not sure which is going to be the least stressful. I have no rooms in the house i can shut them away in apart from the bathroom and thats really small too so im not quite sure what to do!

What have other people done when they have moved?

ARGHH!! lol