# How many cats does it take to make someone a "crazy cat person"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 20, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179 "2010-05-20T20:48:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/21 "2010-05-21T00:15:33Z")
I have five cats. When my husband was alive, it wasn’t too many. Now it just is. And one of them, deaf Cuthbert, is like 150 cats in one large, furry, psychotic bundle. ---
**Author:** ![Deanna\_D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e495f1/32.png) [@Deanna\_D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deanna_D)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/22 "2010-05-21T00:22:15Z")
Just wanted to chime in and say that I once had eight kitties. Somehow, I went through a phase of being the one that everyone gave their unwanted cats to, and each came with a story of why they had to give it up, and what horrible fates they would all meet if a good home for them wasn’t found, etc. I never considered myself crazy, since they were all well taken care of, and I never really tried to take in that many…it kinda just crept up on me. The vet bills were hell, since my vet only gave discounts if you had ten or more. (!) I’m thinking that it’s not the number of cats you have that makes you crazy, it’s when you end up with more than you can properly care for that you hit the crazy mark. Regardless of what number that may be. These days, I’m down to a paltry three cats. Oh, and three dogs, just for good measure. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/23 "2010-05-21T00:33:04Z")
For the single people, I voted 3 or more (and 4 and 5 or more - seriously, do people not know how to answer multiple checkbox questions?). And oddly, for people living with others, I went with 2 or more and on. I wasn’t really thinking of married people, but rather people with roommates. If you have roommates, you get 1 cat - beyond that, you’re an annoying crazy cat person. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/24 "2010-05-21T00:52:46Z")
I work with a lady who is a foster mom. She has maybe half a dozen cats and dogs that belong to her (because they could not be adopted). She currently has three litters of cats, totaling more than a dozen new kittens, and the three mommy cats. She’s not crazy by any definition. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/25 "2010-05-21T01:34:16Z")
ONE. If it’s the right cat. Trust me on this. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/26 "2010-05-21T01:36:49Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > ONE. If it’s the right cat. > > Trust me on this. SPOT on ---
**Author:** ![mikews99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@mikews99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikews99)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/27 "2010-05-21T01:46:38Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > seriously, do people not know how to answer multiple checkbox questions?). If you think “X” or more, then all you need to do is check the one box for each type since that’s the threshold. Unfortunately, the poll format isn’t well adapted for multiple choice with two or more variables. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/28 "2010-05-21T01:53:28Z")
Why does your poll only include gender based responses? It should not matter what your gender is. ---
**Author:** ![mikews99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@mikews99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikews99)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/29 "2010-05-21T02:16:14Z")
Google results: “Crazy cat man” = 484,000 results “Crazy cat woman” = 1,310,000 results It seems to be a significant distinction, so I wanted to see what the biases are here. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/30 "2010-05-21T02:32:16Z")
> [@mikews99](#): > > Google results: > > “Crazy cat man” = 484,000 results > “Crazy cat woman” = 1,310,000 results > > It seems to be a significant distinction, so I wanted to see what the biases are here. Then you weren’t really looking for a poll as much as a bias?:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/31 "2010-05-21T02:36:32Z")
1. ---
**Author:** ![emcee2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emcee2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emcee2k)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/32 "2010-05-21T02:45:30Z")
I never really thought of “crazy cat person” as in “That person is crazy to have that many cats”, but more “That crazy person has a lot of cats”. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/33 "2010-05-21T03:12:32Z")
We have two cats. But they’re not pets. Anyone with more than two pet cats is crazy, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![mikews99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@mikews99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikews99)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/34 "2010-05-21T03:18:14Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Then you weren’t really looking for a poll as much as a bias? I’m looking for what threshold people think a person qualifies as a crazy cat person, how that is broken down by gender, and whether or not living alone affects that threshold. I would have liked to have broken it down even more, but the poll would become much too unwieldy. If you would like to see a non-gender based poll, please by all means, create your own. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/35 "2010-05-21T03:25:08Z")
If you’re doing some sort of cat rescue thing and take good care of them, you’re good no matter how many. But I once lived upstairs from a crazy cat lady who had like four dozen. They were everywhere. I could barely get up the stairs. Most of them didn’t come inside and were quite wild. They didn’t all have names. Maybe that’s the thing. If your cats all have names, you’re good. If they all have names AND you buy them gifts and they all have stockings they hang up by the chimney at Christmas, and you have all of their portraits on the wall, then you’re a crazy cat person even if you only have three. My roomie and I once had eight, and then one of them had kittens. Six kittens. Eight was already too many. We divested. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/36 "2010-05-21T04:13:27Z")
My ex-husband and I once had 7 cats, before my son was born. This wasn’t intentional. We only intentionally had five, then we rescued two kittens from a parking garage. Yes we did hang up stockings for each one at Christmas one year (very small stockings. Each one had like a little wad of aluminum foil in it or a milk jug ring). My husband and I (and my son) currently have 3 cats, which is down from 4 because one died\* last year while we were on our honeymoon ☹ but we only had 4 because one was a kitten we were initially “going to find a home for” though that sham fell through after about 30 seconds in our care. (seriously, could you [give up this kind of cuteness??](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtVdRCVWieo)) I doubt I’d have more than 3 on purpose anytime soon, and I don’t think I’ve ever been a crazy cat person. I agree with the people who have said upthread that it’s more about how many cats you can take proper care of than it is about any fixed number of cats. \*(the kitten in the video is not the one that died btw–he is now over a year and a half old and doing fine) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/37 "2010-05-21T06:22:22Z")
While hygiene is important, as is the number you can care for, a key part is the word “crazy”. There has to be something odd about the person. Usually that they are a better with cats than people. It’s not just being single. It’s being single because you identify with cats more and don’t want to bother finding human companionship. You spend more time an energy making your cats happy than any human being (and usually more than all humans combined). And if you have a verifiable mental disorder that has ostracized you from society, that helps, too. ETA: forgot to mention that I know a girl who loves her cat more than her boyfriend. We jokingly referred to her as a “crazy cat lady,” but she doesn’t meet the requirements voiced upthread. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/38 "2010-05-21T08:49:20Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > We have two cats. But they’re not pets. Co-owners? ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/39 "2010-05-21T09:07:23Z")
I had to pick two choices, 1. Male living alone with more than 3 cats, 2. Female living alone with more than 5 cats. I don’t know if they’re quiiiiiiiiiite at crazy cat person status at that point, but their definitely circling the harbor of Cat Crazy Town in my book. If they keep on that trend, they could be in real trouble. More than three pets period is starting to wend that way a bit (says the little old lady with 4 pets, but two are small cockatiels, and one of those is very very old), but I don’t remember where I read that. Whoops, forgot to add my pets. One dog, one cat, two cockatiels. The old lady cockatiel was a rescue. ---
**Author:** ![scareyfaerie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scareyfaerie/32/3135_2.png) [@scareyfaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scareyfaerie)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2010, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179/40 "2010-05-21T09:58:23Z")
Two people, two cats. We can be crazy without needing feline help! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cats-does-it-take-to-make-someone-a-crazy-cat-person/540179.md?page=3)