Does cat hair annoy you? No, is my answer and I’ll tell you why. I am used it. It never really bothered me but I am completely used to it, now. I treat it the same way I treat dust – ignore it.
I am joking. I don’t ignore it neither am I concerned by it.That is the key to dealing with cat hair: get used to it and treat it as a part of life, a very minor, almost insignificant part.
The places where cat hair usually finds itself are:
- on the bed
- along skirting boards and in nooks and crannies where breezes make the hair strands settle
- on chairs and sofas
Hoovering obviously deals with 2 and 3 while I have special brush that is extremely effective for picking up cat hair from the bed. I use the brush as it is quiet so I can do it, if needs be, while Charlie, my cat, is still on the bed. He gets a brush sometimes too.
Brush for cat hairs
Some cats like to be hoovered!
A lot of people don’t adopt a cat because of the hair they produce. They don’t like it flying around the home. I can see that but it is a shame because humans produce a lot of stuff that flies around the home too. What about human skin cells? We have about 1.6 trillion skin cells and we shed about 1 million every day. They all end up around the house, on shelves and near skirting boards and on picture frames. I think we contribute nicely to the things that need to be hoovered up.
Humans should get over the idea that a home is like a picture perfect possession and start treating it as a home.
The problem is about attitude. A lot of people seek “the dream” that they are fed by media 24/7. Included in that mythical dream is a wonderful, permanent show home. It has to be perfect all the time as if no one lives in it. It is a measure of their success. You’ve “made it” when you have the perfect show home with two kids, a dog and a gorgeous fluffy, white, Persian cat, with a large 4×4 people carrier parked outside next to the permanently lush, green, beautifully manicured front lawn adjacent to the pink roses.
Please get over it and start seeing a home as a home with all the usually defects. Defects including cat hair add character to a home. It is lived in and a cat adds soul to the home.
You’ll find that people who are considering adopting a cat search the internet for “cat shedding” or “Non-shedding cat breeds“. They are looking for a cat that does not shed hair. All cats shed hair unless there is almost no hair – one of the hairless cats – and even then there is some downy hair. The Devon Rex is meant to be the cat breed with the lowest levels of shedding but that is anecdotal.
Shedding takes place due to increased levels of ambient light in the summer months not due to increased heat. Steps can be taken to minimise hair shedding. What about regular grooming? That is good for your cat and good for you if you are ambivalent about cat hair around the home.
Do single coated cats shed less hair than double coated cats and do short haired cats shed less hair than long haired cats? I don’t think it is worth asking those questions and in any case the difference won’t be significant.
The bottom line is to accept cat hair without question and groom your cat routinely. You can forget about anything else to do with cat hair. And remember the human skin cells.
Hi Caroline. Hope the ribs get together real soon. I suspect they might get a bit uncomfortable after a a few days when the nerves start to wake up.
There’s not much choice in cat carers here. One expects people who work everyday in that job to be adequately competent but I was wrong. There is no licensing or qualifications for the job and anybody can do it. As for the Vets that incompetence is pretty common and reporting them would only be a waste of time. The way it works here is by word of mouth. It soon gets around which is a good or bad vet. The Vet who recommended the Swedish cat carers is the same one who bungled the treatment of my cats, so I stay away from that trio, and tell people about them. I don’t know of any way to check their habits and or understanding of hygiene, except by bitter experience. A recommendation from a Vet should be useful, but oy wasn’t that way at all. One duck recommends another duck. . I now have a new Vet who is much closer to home. She is a Professor in Veterinary matters. My new cat carer is not a door-to-door vector of disease and things are looking up. Both the first Vet and the Swedes are very expensive, but that is no guarantee of competence of course, pretty soon that Vet will be looking at an empty waiting room and the Swedes sitting at home looking at a phone that never rings. But before that there will be a long trail of sick or dead pets. The attitude here seems to be ” They are only animals. People have the right to work and earn a living”. The government animal quarantine facilities are I suppose adequate so long as it doesn’t rain. They use a lot of pretty potent disinfectant and lots of hosing down, but it floods when it rains heavily. None of my cats got sick there.
Quats are effective in preventing the spread of many parasitic diseases which was the main problem at that time. It works at very dilute concentrations and I don’t see any bad effects on my cats, and they don’t tear up my hands and clothes like bleach does. I have just been recommended SAVLON but I can’t find any.
the neuropathy/pain was there from day one. not fun, but i truly do prefer to be lighthearted. 🙂 get back to you soon…
Mr. Michael, you know very well that You are the Best ‘Little Shit’ that we ever had on this planet. please continue…
Hi Caroline. My problems got quite a bit more complicated than just lousy old bacteria. Some time ago whilst I was on a 2 week trip to S America I had a couple of Swedish pet carers in. They go from house to house looking after dogs and cats. Most of my cats got sick with some bug that was relatively easy to cure – probably just a bacteria. the 2nd time I was away and the same 2 Swedes took over, my cats got really sick. Over quite a long period of time a couple of different laboratories diagnosed E Hystolytica amoebas, a resistant bacteria, and by trial and error I discovered they also had coccidiosis. The Lab tested them and couldn’t find anything so I asked about coccidiosis. Their reply was that cats don’t get that in Cyprus which made me very suspicious. And then after long searches and questioning I discovered a treatment that no Vet had ever heard of, BAYCOX, specific for coccidiosis. With just one dose they were all cured. The usual rubbishy treatments for amoebas and cox is very difficult as the cats won’t accept it. And then I had to find a disinfectant that kills the spores and ococytes of those diseases. Same old performance of useless information until I found that disinfectants with quaternary ammonium do just that. Bleach, all other types of disinfectants including H2O2 do not work. Sure there may be some other stuff but nobody here knows about that, and anyway according to the Lab there is no cox here, so nobody would buy it. Trouble with that disinfectant it’s not so good at killing bacteria so I have to alternate between bleach and that one. So you see it’s not a simple matter of any old disinfectant and the usual routine. It was very complicated and involved not tramping infection from one part of the house to the other. They are OK now but I need a six month holiday!! Luckily there were no deadly diseases like panleucopenia. It make one realise that there are a lot of sick pets out there and those Swedes did not practise adequate hygiene and so carried diseases from house to house. From this story you will understand why my approach to hygiene is rather exacting. On a previous occasion I got a nice Van kedisi from the Vet but it turned out he had Candida Albicans and a real nasty bacteria called pseudomonas aeruginosa, resistant to all antibiotics unless given with something to breakdown the bacteria cell wall. This bacteria has been found living even in the vents of active volcanoes under the sea. So how did that cat get it? Well it’s an opportunistic bug which is everywhere and just waits for a weakened individual to come by (and an incompetent Vet). It was a long job curing him and I had to find out how to do it myself. So why go to the vet when they can’t diagnose much less cure anything much.
Well, it’s been awhile,as far as looking at what you id’d as some type of coccidia The only experience I have had with coccidii in morphology anyway, was with, ohwell let me get back to you, [I have two broken ribs right now on my left side w/o any pain meds-I refuse) or anything akin in the parasite world except for Listeria, amoebas and leeches-symbiotic, sometimes, another topic altogether which I love! ;), but this is what I would ask myself. You are in SA and you do not know what exactly they are doing in the environment that they –these two that you said travel door-to door? –are exposing your cats to, or do you? What are their habits? I’m guessing that you pay top-dollar to have your Angoras and Vans looked after when you cannot be there. Have you debriefed them; have they debriefed you? You are validated. That vet- those veterinarians deserved to have their license revoked, if you gave them all that and they still couldn’t help you without , then they are really not qualified. Do not let those pet caretakers back in with your cats. You have already said so.
I’m going to bed. broken ribs. give you more if you need it tmrw. I care; we all do as you know.
I truly would not use a quat, if you can help it. Get thee self to a better vet.
Hi Caroline. Yes the topic wandered off a bit. , but changing clothes also solves the cat hair problem.
And, I don’t, but i learned this early on in micr; auto-lysis on the cell membrane: hot/cold/hot/cold water baths. very few bacteria can can survive this treatment. ??
Harvey, Mr. H.
How much bkgrnd do you have in micro, cuz i’m guessing that either you are playing for a fool or you travel too much. 🙂 We love you, btw!
Hi Caroline. I can assure you if you put those hosed-down rugs through a washing machine the water will turn black and smell pretty bad- assuming they don’t turn to rags. The same with mopping the floor. While still wet wipe a paper towel over the floor and see just how dirty it still is. Traditional cleaning methods are usually quite inadequate, hence the need for disinfectants.
Whether summer or winter I wear one set of clothes in the house and a different set to go to town. Cat smells gets everywhere even in the hair so before I go out I have a really thorough shower from top to bottom and a complete change of clothes. Even so I have to be careful. I remember once going shopping and had not noticed one of my toms had peed on my trouser leg. Other people did notice!! Through painful experience I find that phenol disinfectants like Dettol are the best for knocking out tom cat smells.
Harvey, I don’t because my Shrimp still suffers from chronic respiratory problems. What I have to use is H2O2–good ol hydrogen peroxide as a disnfectant. in fact, I use it to clean my cutting bamboo cutting board and vegetables. Confess, I also use plain old kosher salt on my rugs, before giving them the cold water spray on the patio. Never anything with a pH other than 7.0 Now, that said, I do test the pH of my hose water, and I’m careful when/if i need to buffer it. (We don’t want those beautiful natural dyes leaching out, do we! 😉 (I don’t have a washing machine big enough.) sigh…
We love love love our cats, and allow them to climb our legs, if that’s when they want to look straight into our eyes, or maybe get a morsel to eat 😉 making ‘love,’ but we–as you know much better than I do, we must protect them, and i would like you to further elucidate on the topic of cleaning upholstery and antique rugs. Our cats come first and foremost, and ,well, ,sheepish grin>, I am certain that Michael–as quick as he is [bless him!] will be right on top of ths soon.In the meantime, I’m very much interested in you furthering the rug/carpet cleaning topic. TIA! >^..^<
I have a ton of cat hairs on me when I head off to work in the morning. I stopped caring about it. Sometimes I give myself a quick brush with my hands but nothing special – no real effort to combat the cat hairs going on in my house.
You’re a mess 😉 Just joking. Cat hairs are not a problem. The problem is people who don’t like anything other than perfection in the home.
Do you wear black? I do. just to be rebellious. (No wonder they want me working from home.) Actually i do have two friends who are allergic to cat dander. maybe it isn’t an enzyme in their saliva, but possibly because they became allergic to some other allergen, and blamed [as did the medical field] on cats? I don’t know..??
I gave up house perfection a long time ago. Now, my morning goal is just to make better after each unsupervised night of feline frolic here.
Hair is simply a fact of life, and I am often wearing “furry” clothing and coughing up a fur ball now and then (LOL).
By the way, it took me a second or two to figure out that “hoovered” meant vacuumed.
Marvellous. Great. You get the cat caretakers award for excellence for July 😉
Hi Michael. One day someone will do a study of carpets and all the contaminants, insects, fleas, dust mites, bacteria, and other pathogens that they harbour. Most people will be horrified but not me. It does not take much imagination to know that a carpet is ideal for collecting all that is nasty. Vacuuming only scratches the surface. The dirt lies beneath the surface in the pile. Rugs can be removed and given the real treatment with detergent and disinfectant AND insecticide. . My washing machine is big enough to take rugs and quilted mattresses. I bought it with that in mind. The amount of dirt and fluff that simple sweeping and mopping picks up is amazing. Rugs would only collect that dirt, but the cats would love them. One day I may have fewer cats so at least I can have real Turkish carpets in the living dining area, but maybe that’s not such a good idea, just a dream, like conforming to the ideal show home vision thrust upon us by society. I remember several occasions when I got unexpected visitors and the house was in a bit of a mess. They never noticed anything, only the large fluffy white cats with blue and odd eyes. So maybe having a spotless house is not as important as people think.
Dust mites that feed on shed human skin cells are a major cause of allergies, and they lurk in bedding, mattresses, carpets and soft furnishings. So the fewer the better. For those that are indispensable you should have the means to thoroughly but easily clean them.
That has to be a post in the near future. Thank you. You paint a bleak picture of what lurks within the carpet. A true one though.
Harvey, I have a few Persian rugs, but I have to take them outside and hit’em with the hose, always waiting for it to turn cold first, of course. And the cats love those rugs as much i do! Drying them is problematic, as they should be kept out of the sun. They are almost as dense as me. 😉
Whoa, watch the context there, you! lol
You can imagine what it’s like having 30 Angoras/Vans, 15 of them in different areas of the house. They don’t really have fur. It’s more like fluff and has the consistency of spider’s web. It is very light, soft, and fine, and it floats on the least current of air. Does it annoy me? Yes and no, because the extremely fine fluff gets up my nose, but getting annoyed is not going to solve the problem. I have all kinds of tricks to deal with it, ranging from regular grooming to having no carpets. A marble and ceramic floor doesn’t really need carpets unless you are prepared to do the Turkish flying carpet act. They would need to be glued down. It’s also hilarious to see the cats skidding and sliding all over the place as they chase each other around. The funniest part is seeing them not moving forward at all as their paws frantically try to get a grip, like the wheels of a car spinning on the asphalt. But now they seem to be learning not to try to accelerate so fast. A large damp sponge with a little disinfectant and dish-washing soap works fine on upholstery.
I want a Turkish Angora 😉 LOL
Seriously, I find that comment interesting because Charlie leaves quite clear black hairs – sweet boy. They are not “soft” and floaty. They just sit there on the bed with my skin cells 😉
I don’t have carpets either. I guess in a hot climate carpets are crazy. I think carpets in houses with cats are not that suitable. I prefer wood floors or lino with a rug. Rugs are better than fitted carpets for cat owners. Wrong? That is not to criticise. It is not that big a deal but no carpet = less problems = more functional etc. What about vomit…. 😉 And fleas…..?
And the large intake vents for the air-conditioning/furnace unit need to be wiped regularly or you lose efficiency. Funny, in my friend’s house who lets me reside because of my cats, I sometimes get absentminded and use the Firminator. 😉 Sometimes, I use my own hairbrush on Luck and Shrimp as I was just brushing my hair and they look at me… 😉
In my house cat hair is the same as dust , although with two Persian cats at home, its quite a lot of cat dust. I am embarrassed when guests occasionally come home and strands of cat hair flies around the house on switching the fan.Seems, all cat owners are accustomed to slight strands of cat hair in their house, totally acclimatised to living with their cats.Its only the occasional guest or visitors unaccustomed to cats or cat haters who would notice and be uncomfortable with slight strands of cat hair.
‘I treat it the same way I treat dust – ignore it’
lol Michael you are funny!
Cat hair has never bothered me either as it’s part of life, like you say we humans shed about a million cells a day but people who don’t like cat hair don’t think about that.
It’s surely simple enough to hoover up any cast off cat hair along with our own cast off bits.
We only need to brush and comb Walter daily but Jozef needs two lots of grooming a day as his coat is very dense and he has much more loose hair and is very prone to hairballs.
We make grooming time fun so our boyz enjoy it.
It’s a labour of love and people should just look upon it like brushing and combing their own hair or their children’s hair.
Shoot, I misread that, Michael. I thought that you said it was about “altitude” (where are my reading glasses?) LOL
“They don’t like it flying around the home.” And as for that one, dust your ceiling fans or one day you WILL wake up with cat furballs up your nose! 😉
lol Caroline you and Michael have both made me laugh today already