The war with Oscar is over…

…and I’m the winner! In case you’re wondering, Oscar is one of our cats and he and I have been battling for quite some time. It was only a matter of time until I beat him really cause come on – he’s a cat and I’m a human! What were the battles about? Well a long time ago we took to locking the cats in the basement for the night so that they didn’t annoy the hell out of us in the morning whining to get fed at 0600. We’ve got a cat hole to the basement which means we had to block it off to prevent the escape of the cats. For a while we used a baby gate that is also used to close off the kitchen / family room – it was mounted in such a way that it could be swung over to block the door to the basement as well (great suggestion by Amy when I was mounting it) thereby serving two purposes, keeping Liam in the kitchen / family room or keeping the cats in the basement. As I mentioned, this worked for a little while, but eventually became ineffective.

Over time the locking mechanism (the one used to control the width) on the baby gate didn’t hold as well as it probably should. Given that the gate is at a weird angle when it is blocking the basement door, and that it only slips less than a centimetre, I can’t complain too much about it. Anyways, that one centimetre slip is enough that the pressure fit holding the gate in place loosens enough that Oscar can squeeze his way out of the cat hole into the space between the door and the gate and then jump over the gate to freedom. I don’t think Sophie was ever able to do it though – or maybe she just didn’t care enough. Anyways, bottom line – he was able to get out and start annoying us again. Not good.

Since the gate wasn’t working – I started piling things in front of the cat hole. I started with the cat food bin, which is quite heavy when it’s full. I don’t think that lasted more than 10 minutes before he was out. After that I tried a box of cat litter, with the food bin on top. That didn’t hold him either. By the way, in case you’re wondering how he gets past these things – he head butts them until they move out of the way. Yes – he is crazy! Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, a cat litter box (11 KG) and the food bin. Since that didn’t work, I moved onto 2 cat litter boxes and the food bin. That didn’t stop him either. After that, two cat litter boxes, a portable file folder bin thing full of files and the food bin. That seemed to hold him back, but I knew it was only a matter of time before he beat that one too – plus the hallway was getting crowded with this stuff so I knew I had to find a more permanent solution.

I thought about maybe getting a piece of sheet metal that I could slide down between the cat hole trim and the door, but given the way it is mounted, I would have had to make slots for the mounting screws and well, I would have had to have found a piece of sheet metal that was suitable, cut it, etc… Instead, I opted for the little door you see on the photos accompanying this post. Simple, cheap and effective! I should probably paint it so that it looks a little nicer, but since it’s mounted on the basement side of the door – it doesn’t really matter.

Anyways, as I said, the war is over. :)