Sometimes a landlord’s life is not a happy one. By way of example, this evening I got a call from my new tenant saying his girlfriend’s cat had disappeared into the wall, which by bad luck is open under the sink. On the third floor, naturally. So the cat went into this cavity and vanished, downwards it seems. I told the tenants to go check with the people on the second floor to see if they could hear it in the wall there. I even told them they could open up the wall, if necessary.
I’m not really sure how this house is framed, so I don’t know how far down the cat could have gone. The building is a triple-decker (three identically configured apartments stacked on top of one another). There’s no actual chase for the plumbing, but there’s space between the studs where the plumbing comes up more or less in a straight shot from the basement. I suppose the cat could have fallen all the way through. It wouldn’t come out into the basement, though, because the basement ceiling is plastered over metal lath. Best guess, then, the cat is somewhere behind the wall in the first or second-floor kitchen.
Anyone have any bright ideas about how to proceed, without demolishing the house?
I know nothing about walls, but I do know cats. 8 times out of 10, if the humans just stop making so much noise and fuss, Catface will find his own way out of the jam. (Friend of mine has a cat that actually nests in the walls. I don’t know exactly what she’s climbing on, but she disappears into the fireplace and goes further away than my arm will reach.) I’d suggest some gushy food on all three levels, open cabinets under the sink, and a good night’s sleep for all. Morning may see the situation resolved.
That’s totally what I’m hoping. My fear is that the cat was hurt in a fall and can’t make its way back up. On the other hand, there’s precedent for what you suggest. The second-floor tenants once apparently lost a ferret in the wall, and it came back on its own.
Hey, maybe we could send the ferret in as a search party!
We had one living in our walls for *weeks *once, when I was a college student in New Orleans. It is a very moist climate and urban wildlife is abundant. We’re not exactly sure what he was eating, but it was clear he wasn’t missing any meals. Anyway, we eventually could tell that the meowing noise (which we had been telling ourselves must be pigeons in the eaves) was coming from the bathroom ceiling. The landlord just needed to cut out the ceiling to get him out. I say leave treats out to see if he comes out by himself, plus have everyone in the triple-decker listening for his meows. Hope he’s OK!
Don’t assume that the cat went down, may have gone up, probably found some smells it liked. If you have attic doors or crawl space access open them all up and just leave them open and wait, have the tenants go about their normal routine. Do not try to call the cat out or scare it out, just let the cat come out on it’s own. Cats are just that way.
And they aren’t clumbsy so I don’t think the cat fell or otherwise got into a predicament it can’t get out of. They can turn around in small places.
If the cat gets into distress, listen for it. Borrow a stethescope or use the old trick of putting the open end of a glass to the wall and press your ear to the bottom of the glass and listen.
I have an old house and left an attic access door open an our cat was able to go pretty far into the walls, took it’s time exploring but eventually came out.
This probably won’t help, but it’s the coolest kitty rescue story I’ve ever heard.
My friend was working at a horse farm. The walls of the stables were about 5-6 feet tall and open on the top, with boards nailed across the posts so that it was open just on top. I don’t recall if the kittens were born inside it or just moved there by the mother, but at any rate, these little kittens were stuck between the two walls.
My friend took long lengths of fabric, about two inches wide, and fished it down between the walls. The kittens caught their little needle claws on the fabric and my friend patiently reeled each one of them up through the opening.
Well, WhyNot was right. The tenants slightly enlarged the hole, and the cat came out on its own. Yes, the wall gave birth to a cat. A bit of a let-down, an ending devoid of drama. Just what I wanted, in other words.
Woo-hoo! Now, and this is important: COVER THE HOLE! Drywall it if you can, but if that’s too complicated w/ the pipes there, nail a smooshed flat pie tin over it. Unless they want a wall-dwelling cat, but if I were their downstairs neighbor, I might take issue with that.
A suggestion for the future: If you know someone in the local fire department, ask to borrow them and the thermal imaging camera to search for the cat. The critter should generate enough heat to show up as a warm spot through drywall.
We used ours once to search for a lost Alzheimer’s patient near the nursing home on a cold night. Found him in about 10 minutes…
I once taped a cheap security camera to a pole to see what was living in my chimney (squirrels). If you just need to look down a hole many video cameras have infrared lights built into them.
I would consider using foam insulation to plug up the hole.
