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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Superb-Ad3821 on 2026-01-09 21:20:52+00:00.
I foster cats. This year we’re busy as hell but I’ve got a couple of spare rooms so I’ve got kittens downstairs and three adult cats in a spare room upstairs (they came in together)
It’s a bit of an odd spare room, very clearly build as an extension but on a different level to the rest of the house and it doesn’t have plaster there it has planks along the ceiling.
Three days before Christmas I walk in to the room and no cats. Huh. I presume they’re under the bed. So I put down the food and down they come from the hole in the ceiling that very much wasn’t there before. Turns out there was a loose plank they’ve removed by sitting on the wardrobe. This is not a complete surprise; when we moved in we found a different loose plank with an empty bottle of vodka behind but it does pose a problem. I am a five foot tall woman. I can only just reach the ceiling with my finger tips on a chair. I am scared of ladders. I have an odd job man I get to do tall person stuff but it’s three days before Christmas and he’s busy.
I push cushions in there. One of the adults, ivy, has been adopted and is due to go out. That plan works until she hears a stranger in the house ready to pick them up. Those cushions are gone in five seconds flat and all three are in the loft.
The next day I push the wardrobes away from the wall and a fellow volunteer came over. Together we manage to capture Ivy and send her off to a new home. Hurrah us. An hour later holly proves she can reach the hole with a flying leap from the wardrobe half a room away.
Christmas is an arms race against cats which I very much lose. I stuff the hole with things which they remove and have a lovely time running up and down the hole length of loft. They’re friendly cats they just have strong loft feelings.
Yesterday my handyman offered to come fix the hole! Awesome! Except when I go to move the cats to let him do this they vanish up the damn hole.
Fine, I said, I know they can go all the way along the loft. I’d rather have them rampaging the house than in the loft. Close it up. I’ll open the loft hatch and they can come down that way
Did you know cats are afraid of loft ladders? Because I did not know that.
I tried tempting them out with treats. I laid long soft things out along the ladders for their claws . I put food at the bottom.
At around midnight yesterday I coaxed holly close enough with chicken to grab her in a towel and rspca gloves, bundle her down the ladder and out. Whereupon she raced to her room and screamed in fury when she discovered the hole was shut.
Mistletoe was harder. He’d just watched that and wasn’t coming near but he was starting to cry by this morning because he wanted his buddy back in with him.
Somewhere along this time I pull down the folding loft ladder and whack myself in the eye with it. I’ll probably have a black eye tomorrow.
In desperation I built him steps. This did not work.
Finally I borrowed a cat trap off the rescue and after setting it off myself three times managed to tempt him in. I am very tired. They are both pissed but everyone is safe and in a bonus they’ve both been reserved so new homes are coming.
TL:DR didn’t know board was loose in ceiling, ended up with loft cats. Will put cat tax in comments.