Moving house with cats

[lilibet]

How long do you keep your cts in after you have moved? I moved this weekend with 2 cats (and 3 kids!!) and we are roasting as we cant open any soddinf windows in ase the cats get out! I waited a fortnight last time, but have been told of someone who did it straght away. How long is advisable?

such bad typing - its the heat!!

We waited a week, but I think it depends on how far you've moved 'cos the cat that used to live here still thinks this is her home (the previous owners only moved a couple of streets away) and we've been here for five months! If you're nowhere near your cats' old prowling grounds then you'll probably be fine to let them out after a week. Good luck

I think it depends on the cats - are they nervous? Do they roam? Are they likely to disappear?.
I let my ruffy-tuffy male out after a day because he made such a fuss. DH and I then followed him around in the dark until we could get him in again

We kept ours in for a week, they disappeared for hours when we finally let them out but they came back that night! Phew!

We only waited a few days last time and we lost one of our cats She never turned up and we never found out what happened to her (probably better not knowing). We had left them out for an hour, while we went shopping.

I think though if you are around they will be quite happy to just potter around in close vicinity to the house. The mistake we made was to close all the windows when we went out, so if they were frightened by something they ran off and got lost.

I think the official advice is 2 weeks, but I do think if you are around when you let them out, with windows open, they should be okay.

Poor you trying to endure closed windows at moment! Maybe you should just abandon the house for 2 weeks with the cats getting used to new home and you camp out in garden!

I never kept my three (!) cats in when we moved for at least a fortnight - couldnt stand all that litter business.

we let ours out on the same day but is an old cat and not much of a traveller.

One little tip (sorry if obvious) is to wait until you would normally feed them and they are hungry - then let them out into a back graden (pref.). After only a couple of minutes bang your tin and call them back for feeding and make big fuss. Repeat around next feed time and leave the length of time a little bit longer. My friend told us to leave the back door open with reasonably loud music on and sit in the garden talking to help the cats orientate themselves more easily when exploring nearby - dunno if it works as we just let her out within hours of arriving (no problems - never lost a cat yet....)

we've lost cats in the past after moving, and now i wouldn't let mine out for at least a week, but as mentioned before it probably depends on the cats and how likely they are to roam

We've moved lots of times with a variety of cats and have never lost any of them. We've kept them in until the removal men have left, as the noise made them nervous, but after that, we'd let them out to explore. Sending them out hungry is a good idea - ours always returned for meals!