Well....I was supposed to be having a nice new kitchen and bathroom fitted in the flat I rent from the local council (not by choice as such - they were both very dated and falling apart. In fact the kitchen had been in the process of being replaced when I moved in but never got finished for whatever reason. Oh and then they were supposed to replaced by 2009, but they "ran out of budget" eh). They turned up yesterday and began working on the kitchen. Then decided to call in the surveyor to look at my internal walls, which lead to them deciding to knock them down as they were "empty" and have them rebuilt (something they found hilarious for some reason). Which now means my flat is pretty much a building site. We have nowhere else we can go, and the council are not willing to help us with temporary accomodation either.
I have 2 cats. Simba who I've had for 2 years now and raised from a kitten and Charlie who I adopted a couple of months ago as he was a local stray (I have made threads on both the cats in the past). Simba i am not TOO concerned about. He goes outside all the time, is a very bold cat and is not particularly bothered by all this. The only thing that I am concerned about is the amount of dust affecting him (well both of them) and the fact it's pretty dangerous in here imo apart from the bedrooms, but these are too small to shut a huge active cat like Simba in, plus he goes outside anyway and I don't want to stop that.
Charlie on the other hand is a completely different cat. As I adopted him very recently, I was advised by the vet to keep him indoors for a number of reasons - 1.) To ensure the cats got along first and that neither would block access to the cat flap (it's under the stairs inside the building) or chase the other one away. 2.) To ensure Charlie became familiar with his new home and would treat it as such and not get confused and try to go back into other neighbours houses looking for food (as they were feeding him things like milk and meat which are "treats"). 3.) To ensure he didn't get lost again as a result of the other things mentioned and 4.) The weather has obviously been very cold/snowy and if he did get lost it could be dangerous. So Charlie hasn't been outside yet since I had him neutered and chipped about 2 months ago.
Charlie and Simba initially didn't get along although a lot of progress has been made and they now get along a lot better. They don't quite do major things like snuggle together or groom each other, but they do play together (sometimes it gets a little rough, but at least they're not fighting) and will sit alongside each other, sniff at each other and even rub noses lately. But Charlie is a little different to Simba. Whilst Simba is large and bold and playful, Charlie is small, cuddly, quite clingy (although overly trusting of strange humans), very vocal for no reason, over-grooms himself still and does strange things like sucks on my clothing. He has changed a bit, for a long time he was very vacant and he does at least now play to some degree, but it was like I had to teach him to play if that makes sense? He will play with Simba now though which I think helped as he learned from Simba too imo. But I imagine he was separated from his mother too young, in fact I don't think he's very old or even fully grown yet. The vet believed him to be around 6-8 months but he'd been hanging around the local area for a couple of months before that, so he probably was.
ANYWAY....back to today/this week/next week/no idea when. All this work is being done in my home (well actually they've knocked down one wall and disappeared without telling me (I was shut in the bedroom) so no idea what's going on. My living room now leads straight into my kitchen which is an absolute mess with holes leading to the outside and there's dust everywhere in the kitchen and living room (including all over my furniture, kitchen utensils and food which I put in the living room yesterday a per instructed but they didn't cover - they only covered a small area of carpet). The only "safe" places are the two bedrooms. I have put Charlie's food and litter in one bedroom and Simba's food in another. I have been letting Simba come and go whereas Charlie I have been trying to keep from getting too upset by switching bedrooms often.
This work will be ongoing for quite a while. The question I want to put to you all is what should I do with the cats? What would be the kindest thing here? I don't have anyone local who could look after them (I have asked). Should I consider a cattery and board them there for the time being? And both of them or just Charlie being that Simba seems perfectly fine? Or would that make it more distressing for Charlie to be alone? Would he even cope well with it and be better off just staying here?
I am not saying make my mind up for me, just want some outside opinions.
Thanks x
