One of our cats stares at the corner and meows. Sometimes she jumps up and scrabbles at the wall. Other times, she just sits there like she’s been put in time out. For the most part, she seems to be just fine, but sometimes she goes nuts over that corner.
None of the other cats or the dogs seem to think that there is anything interested in that corner. My husband used some sort of hand held gizmo to check for wires in case she was hearing something sparking. Nothing. I used a stethoscope to listen for rodents. Again, nothing.
Is she protecting us from the Hounds of Tindalos? Should I be worried about a hell rift opening without her protection? Or should I just be entertained by a cat doing cat things?
My cat used to stop suddenly, look up and meow at the ceiling. It was kinda spooky. She stopped doing it not long after the landlord hired exterminators to get rid of the mice in the apartment upstairs.
Would the sound of someone holding a stethoscope against the wall cause the mice to hold still?
Do you rent or do you own? If you rent, could any of the previous tenants owned pets? If you own, are you the original owner? If not the original owner, could the previous owner(s) owned pets? Is there a floor or accessible area beneath the floor where is is occurring? What is on the other sides of both walls in that corner? Do you know what is in the walls (e.g., utilities, HVAC)?
I’ve seen a lot of horror movies, and I understand that the next step for you is to set up a camera pointing at that corner and leave a ouija board nearby.
I suspect rodents. Ghost rodents, that only that particular one of your cats is psychic enough to sense. You must pray that they are not demonic ghost rodents, exhorting your cat to do unspeakable things to your shoes or in your mouth as you sleep. Best to get rid of the dogs and buy the highest quality wet cat food and lots of catnip toys, enough for all the cats, to ensure your cat continues to ignore the blandishments of the Dark Side.
No, I’m not in touch with your cats. Why do you ask?
I put this here because I was just mindlessly sharing how cats are teh weird.
My first thought was a rodent, or bad wire. My husband ruled out the bad wire, not to mention that the wiring is low to the floor, not up high where Missy thinks the gates of hell are going to open.
I might have scared a rodent into silence when I checked with the stethoscope, so I tried again several times while being sneaking and stealthy. (picture if you will…a middle aged woman sneaking up on a wall…and try not to laugh while doing so. I promise you, it can’t be done)
One wall is an exterior wall, so its possible that she is hearing lizards or something climbing the wall. The other wall is against a closet. NONONO!!! Don’t look into the closet!!!
I guess I’ll have to limit her catnip consumption and see if that will help. The withdrawal might cause worse problems, though. Cats can indeed do unspeakable things to slippers and shoes.
After reading everyone’s reply to this thread, I started paying better attention to what was going on. Missy’s corner is behind my back, so I usually didn’t notice what she was doing until I turned around and looked at her.
I wondered if it was shadows, so kept the curtains closed for the day. Nope. I inspected the walls to see if we had missed a spot when we painted. No, walls look good, paint is even. We moved the book case to a different part of the room, but that only gave her more room to leap at the wall. (I was worried that some of my old pulp fiction had bookworms, but she didn’t have any interest in the books after they were moved.)
EEK! EEK! EEK!!! I’m calling an exterminating company tomorrow. I sure hope that you are wrong. But…unless its a hell rift opening, I am guessing that there really is something in the walls.
Or…she is just a cat and cats are teh weird. Maybe I should buy some plaster of paris just in case.
Nikki did this in a previous rental house. Best we could figure were beetles or other wood-boring insects living behind the sheetrock, among the wall studs.
Which could include termites, I suppose, but they’re so tiny I can’t imagine they’d be audible, even to a cat, but then again IANATE (I am not a termite expert).
You know you are a homeowner when you prefer it be the gates of hell or a poltergeist rather than something scary like rodent infestation, bad wiring or anything requiring a costly fix
Wait … you have your back to her and then you turn around and see she’s fascinated by the wall? What’s really going on is she is mocking you behind your back and when you turn she pretends to be interested in the wall and you fall for it everytime! Silly human. You do need to worry if one of these times you turn around and see a kitchen knife laying on the floor.
So the exterminator came out today. He listened to the walls and then went into the closet and the gates of hell opened and a demon ate him.
OK, that didn’t happen, he just put a small hole in the wall and sprayed poison into it.
He did tell me that cats often find rodent or bug problems before the owners do. I don’t know if he was just being nice to a paying customer or telling the truth. I like to think that he was telling the truth.
He also lifted the framed needle point I have on the other wall and drilled a small hole and sprayed poison there as well. Then he went to the outside mosquito sprayers and serviced them as while he was here to save us the service call next month. Before I moved to Houston, I had no idea they were a thing.
Oh yeah. The Gates of Hell would probably be covered by homeowner’s insurance, rodents are a maintenance problem.
I do think that everyone who posted here knows that you silly plant. We are just having fun making fun of them. Although it is possible that our cats are hearing things we don’t.
