A home is only as gross as the resident allows it to be. I have an indoor cat and guests to my home who don’t know it are uniformly astonished when she comes sauntering into the room, because there’s no obvious evidence of her. (Even her cat bed in the living room looks at casual glance like a piece of furniture.) But I like living in a clean home and make an effort to keep it that way. I vacuum, dust, mop, etc. regularly, and would do so if I didn’t live with a cat. Add in taking care of the litter box properly, and a cat living in my home is no problem. BTW, my cat is never, ever allowed on the kitchen counters or the dining room table.
Personally, I have been far more disgusted by the condition of homes with children than ones with animals. I also have known people who had neither children or pets who could take the Grossiest Home Award hands-down.
I can always tell when someone has an indoor pet, most particularly a cat, although I am too polite to confirm it when the home owner invariably asks if I can smell it. I have never been in a home where this isn’t true, including spotlessly maintained ones with litter boxes kept far away from normal foot traffic. It is not always a bad smell, but there is definitely an odor.
Only the gross ones are gross. I suspect that pet owners who let pet related things become gross would be inured to other varieties of grossness as well.
Keeping the hair in check and the litter clean can be a lot of work and I do drop the ball sometimes. In those times I am aware that things are not as they should be and it troubles me.
I wonder with all the work her two cats are whether my mom would be better off without them, but she’d be SO lonely. I can only think of about 4 years of her whole life when she did not live in a household with at least one cat.
Obviously I don’t know your circumstances and it’s not my place to judge, but I’ve never heard of a cat owner that does this before. In my opinion, it seems like a waste of time having them if they’re always outside. Are they fed outside and do they sleep outside? Making a fuss of them must be a pain too.
Correct. Our cats are not pets. They’re tools. When one dies, I simply get a replacement.
Yep, fed outside and sleep outside. They love it.
And just in case you think I’m a big meanie (not that I really care), I built them an insulated and heated cat house that they use in the winter. It’s heated with three light bulbs. Nice and toasty in there during the winter.
Absolutely not. It sounds as though they’re well looked after. I was under the impression that they were pet cats which is where my confusion stemmed from.
We have friends (with a teenage boy and 6 year old girl) whose house smells infinitely worse than our (one-cat) house, so I would say that pet owners aren’t the only ones who can corner the market on grossness.
Still can’t get the old man stink out of my house despite trying to override it with cat and dog smells for six years since I bought it.
Old houses smell. When I am finally able to sell mine and buy the house of my dreams, it will not matter that there have been dogs and cats living here - it is a dump in a crappy part of a town that has its own distinctive and unpleasant industrial smell.
I think gross people are gross. My parents have two dogs and, unless my mom is having a bad week, you’d never know it. My in-laws have two dogs and two cats and their house is horrendous. Ugh, you can’t even see the carpet through the dog hair most days. Just disgusting. I ruined a tshirt last time I was over because my pregnant belly was pressed up against their dining room table and I came away with a brown streak from all the smoke film build up on the edge that they apparently never wash; my shirt was actually stuck to the table when I pulled away. So their house is fairly nasty even without the pet problems they have. The pets just make their poor housekeeping skills that much worse.
I’ve got 8 cats and two dogs in the house, and 3 horses outside. My dogs don’t chew things they aren’t supposed to, and none of the animals pee all over the house. Yes, there’s a lot of hair*. That’s why I vacuum daily. And yeah, I bet there is a certain animal smell (not urine, just what comes with many warm furry bodies) but I personally prefer that to diaper pails and teenage BO and fake potpourri scent. As someone said above, gross people will be gross with or without pets.
*Speaking of hair, the drains in this house we just bought were DISGUSTINGly full of hair. Human hair, the previous owners didn’t have indoor animals. The house also had this weird sour funk to it though it was empty and fairly clean. Previous owners had 3 very young children, one an infant. Yes, I could smell it and it grossed me out. YMMV
I’ve always been able to smell a cat-owner’s home. Even people who vacuum their furniture and wash their cats. Hair is EVERYWHERE. I leave covered in it if I stay overnight, even in a dog- or cat- free room. It’s just… accumulation. Dander and animal musk. Sweat. Rarely it’s the litter box, it’s always just “animal.” Even with the devon rex.
It’s like smokers. They exude odor yet have acclimated.
I actually don’t mind pets, and am not overly concerned with hygiene issues like dander and animal slobber. What I do mind is when the animals are misbehaving, like jumping on and slobbering all over me, humping my leg, sniffing my crotch, and doing other animal things that responsible owners would take precautions about. If the animal isn’t extremely, always reliably well behaved … Please keep them separated from guests, pet owners. You probably will not be told that yes, in fact I DO mind that Buddy is using me as a launching board, and I’d really rather NOT welcome your cat into my lap, from your company. But believe me, we mind. A lot. I just excuse myself from any future invitations, and for close friends, invite them out to dinner or to my home for a meal.
When my uncle and aunt separated, he kept the big dogs and the house with the garden, she kept the tiny pooch and the flat. His house is in a “clean bachelor with bad eyesight” shape despite the two hairy walking sofas, hers wouldn’t be clean without that dog she kisses on the mouth (yeech).
Nah, the ones I’ve had as coworkers preferred the “shift with the easily squicked-out human”. Bringing a dead rat to the lab is much more fun when the human runs away and you can sit on her chair to clean yourself than when she says “oh, nice kitty”, takes the rat and puts you back out.
I wonder if many people with pets grow immune to certain smells. I have a family member who recently adopted cats to have at her condo. The cats provide her with some companionship and bring her happiness. She keeps her home very clean, seems to have a good system going on with the kitty litter, cleans that regularly. I can’t help but notice that I am hit with a smell of fresh poop every time I walk in to her place. It is nasty. She does not seem to notice at all. I cannot barely hang out there anymore.
