Thinking about welcoming some cats into our home....

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My DH has made no secret of the fact he is a Cat Person. We had a female tortie/white (rescue) many years ago , she was 2yo when she came to us and enjoyed tolerating us till she was 17yo.

DH has put up with 8 years of guinea-pigs (we had eight of them over the years , at one point we had five ) that DD and I kept.
So now we are without the rodenty types , the last of the group died recently.

I am searching out a glazing company to get a cat door in the french doors (I have said to DH that I will only consider cats if we can let them have access to outdoors as they please)

DH and I work , our DC are teenagers . DD was allergic to the guinea-pigs fur but fine with DBro cat .
No dogs.
Big garden , quiet road.

I think (hope) that a Rescue will say "Yes , you are suitable"

Like our previous cat , I'd prefer young adult to kittens because I cannot spend the first weeks litter training . My DC are home some days with their school/university so they won't be alone long term.

I'm browsing Gumtree ( not intending to buy from there ) some of the kittens ( 9w) are £100-£200 Some are Pedigree/Cross , most are moggies . A lot don't specify vaccines and they won't be neutered.
This is a piss take surely ?

So ....(gets to the point)

Where do you get your cats from if they don't come from a friend who has kittens . Does it have to be a local rescue to do the Home Checks?

What sort of price? I'm thinking of cat+vaccine+neuter , they will have an Adoption Fee of £80ish? approx.

Ideally 2 cats already a pair for company . M/M F/F or M/F ? Are littermates better (I know with puppies it is bad to have littermates) .

How long are they kept inside (assuming they are neutered/vaccinated) to get them used to us.

Best Pet Insurance ?

TIA. I want to step into this prepared . It has been a long while since we had a feline but I remember the presents - mice(dead) birds( sometimes alive and could be freed, sometimes shredded and eaten with the odd birds bum'n'legs left thoughtfully on the floor) , furballs artfully deposited on the stair.
And the stair carpet . She shredded the old one . We got a new one . I saw her paw reach out and told her "No" . She went meh and never shredded it !

And the indifference they show you, but if you try to read a paper , they sit on it .

Since I was a child, we/I have had F-F, F-M, and currently M-F-M. Usually have gotten on fairly well, though sometimes F-M need time to adjust. (Jayda needed time to adjust to Biggie but she did okay with Gatsby, possibly because he was a kitten. Biggie and Jayda stayed with my parents and their two female cats for 2 weeks once. Jayda was immediately welcomed; they took a little time to get used to Biggie. Biggie never met a human or animal, apart from Gatsby, that he didn't like from the start so he did okay.) Kittens that were litter mates often do well together. We had a pair of sisters for years.

You might see if you can adopted a bonded pair of adults. Some rescues will give you a discount on the second cat if they're a bonded pair. Some rescues will house multiple cats together in a large room if they get on okay; you could also consider adopting two cats from the same room.

When I went to be selected by mine, I specified an adult pair and the rescue only showed me cats who got on well together - they had a number of multi-cat pens, and used to move them around at first until they found a pairing or group they got on well with. I HAD wanted an elderly bonded pair but ended up with 2 year old brother & sister, partly because they needed rehoming the most (a full year there ) and partly because Girlcat told me plainly that I was The Chosen One.

Another of my requirements was indoor only cats, and the rescue only let me consider cats who would either be happy indoors or needed to stay in for medical or other reasons. Keeping the doors & windows secure isn't an issue for me as I live alone, but with loads of people in the house I could see that being a problem long term.

You may want to PM Thecatneuterer on here, as she works with the Celia Hammond Trust and is based in North London. I'm guessing the only reason she hasn't already commented on this thread is because she's right in the middle of a big TNR at the mo.

If you get older cats they will be chipped, vaccinated and neutered. We got a brother/sister pair that were 12 weeks old and they had first vaccinations but we had to chip and neuter (and provide proof to the rescue of that or they take them back).

There are lots of independent rescues around, so ask cat people locally or see if there's a local cat Facebook group. Our local one can recommend lots of great rescues. We got our two from one that insists you are a home owner (too many cats returned when people move rented homes and can't find a cat friendly property ), aren't too close to a major road and fit a cat flap (unless you adopt an older, indoor only cat). They also only rehome kittens in pairs, plus older ones if they have a friend/sibling they are already with.

We certainly didn't have to litter train ours, their mum did a great job. They were born in a foster home (their mum was given up to the rescue and found to be pregnant with five!) and their foster mum socialised them really well. We kept them in the spare room/study for the first few weeks and spent lots of time in there playing with them or just sitting reading. Then they were allowed the run of the house and finally allowed out after they'd been neutered so at about six months.

They do groom each other a lot, but they do occasionally fight over territory (boy cat thinks he has the right to sleep on our bed!). They do bring in dead things but we just push growling cat with bird in jaws out of the door gently with a broom! They are so worth it though.

They usually just ask you to keep them in at night. If you get the microchip cat flap they normally have a timer on so it automatically keeps them in after a certain time, so that's fine.

I’d go to a rescue and see which cat picked me. Please don’t rule out older cats, mines 10 and still very playful.

I had a look on the CHAT website ironing , they do Home Checks/Rehome out to Essex (I think Canning Town is our nearest branch) and the CatChat website and CPL have some nearer ,.

We got our previous cat from a Rescue similar to CHAT that mainly specialised in TNR for ferals (IIRC it was South Ockenden area) but there are closer ones I'm sure.

I'm just looking at my NDN cat , he seems to have taken my garden as his now , lardying in the borders this morning. He will get a rude wake-up call I think

We compromise with our two - they are allowed out in the daytime, but the catflap is locked at dusk. That's when they are most lethal (and likely to be run over by a car).

It sounds like your previous feline overlord has trained you well. Get a large cat scratching post that can't easily be knocked over or else attach some hessian to a table leg or wall. And a cardboard box for play value.