Of new roommates and lost cats
 

The scene: I'm a twentyfive year old working stiff, making ends meet working at an organic grocery coop, and I rent out a nice big five bedroom house. I sublet out the four other bedrooms to other people just to help with expenses, and it's generally cool to have someone else to talk to and get into misadventures with. I've been doing this for about a year and a half, and while there have been great downs with this situation, overal it's been mostly huge ups when it is working, and I'm pretty happy with the arrangement, provided my roommates deal straight with me, and aren't shitheads. Most haven't disappointed me much so far, save a notable few...

Anyway, I recently rented out a bedroom to a 43 year old musician/artist/bohemian type. Seemed really cool in the interview, really charismatic and charming, total sweetheart with his woman around. I'm a little put off by the age difference, as I really would rather have people I can relate to a lot more easilly around, but frankly I was getting pretty desperate to fill that room, and this guy seemed cool as hell at the time. So anyway...

He moves in late this past Sunday night, makes rent and deposit then too. I go to work Monday and he goes out on a night on the town with his gf who was in town that night. I come home from work, and play with my sweet, sweet little housecats, both about two years old, farm-turned-housecats, fixed and they love people. I go to bed at about midnight.

About 1am he comes in, comes upstairs and sticks his head wide into my room (I'm barely awake at the time, so I notice this). He doesn't say anything when he sees the lights off. He goes down the hall, and takes a long-ass pee (he must have been completely drunk at this point), and staggers off to bed. About twenty minutes later, I hear some cats outside meowing really loudly, which I attribute to strays (though this time of year, they are pretty rare in St Paul, what with it being fairly cold out still).

The next morning, I can't find my cats. I look around, the front door has been left ajar. I wake this guy up to make sure the cats didn't sleep in his room or something, and he and I split up and start searching the block. I have to get ready for work again (closing one night and opening the next morning really needs to be illegal, seriously), so I leave looking to him as he doesn't have anything going on for the day. While I was at work, a neighbor/coworker says she ran into a cat roughly matching one of my cats' description, and that he was meowing at her and approaching her from up the block my house is on. Of course, she didn't know my cats were missing, so she let the cat alone.

Anyway, I get done with my shift, head home and start calling up all the local shelters and the city pound, but they haven't had ANY cats brought in lately (I even call Public Works in case they were roadkilled, but they haven't had any cats killed lately either, odd for a town this size). I've searched the area a few times today too, and put some of their litter around the yard, as well as some food in the porch with the door propped open. My roommate puts some sardine or something on top of the food, and later on I notice that his contribution is gone, though the food seems to be untouched.

My new roommate finally comes home about around 10pm tonight, drunk. He tries to console me that it'll be fine, they'll turn up, he's hurting too, blahblahblah. He tells me he saw them escape last night, and that they just snuck past him as he tried to open the door. He says he tried to go after them, but (paraphrasing him) they looked at him "mischieviously" and ran up the block.

There are two things I must tackle with this situation: finding my cats, and what to do about this guy. I've decided that I'm not going to kick him out before the end of the month, but I'm not sure if I'm really comfortable having him around. Does it sound like I'm being unfair to this guy to you? Or am I not being rougher with him? Advice on either front is appreciated, thanks.

It sounds like he made a mistake. He accidently let the cats out when he came home drunk, and they got away. At least he tried to help find the cats. I think you should at least give him a little more time to see if he needs to be kicked out or not. If he has alcohol problems, that issue may need to be addressed as well. I know I wouldn't want to have to deal with a drunk guy everynight.

As for your cats, I really hope you find them. Good luck in the search

Im a cat lover , have 2 so I hope you find them soon. Cats are good at finding their way home so chances are you'll see them about soon.

Yeah I suppose you should give the guy a decent amount of time to see if this drinking and leaving the door open all night is his normal behaviour . It doesnt sound good to me though and remember its your house and he needs to respect that and your cats too!!

I hope it isnt long before you find them :)

Well, in mere hours after I started this thread, my one shorthaired tom came back to me :) Now I just gotta worry about my longhaired female, she loves to explore more than my guy, and she's a damn good hider too. Also, I figure she's not quite as bothered by the cold as my tom is.

If it's cold, she probably found a nice warm place to curl up. She'll get hungry soon and start looking for home. The cat litter is the right thing to do. Good luck.

I just learned via another roommate that the new roommate is not going to be living off income generated from playing in gigs with various people and bands around the Cities as he basically implied when I interviewed him, but rather he is living off his mental disability checks. I'm kicking him out, pure and simple. Now, I must figure out the best way to do this. So far I'm thinking of concocting a story that my brother (who is actually an MCSE among other things, really) is moving up to the Cities to take a job up here, and needs the place. This guy just moved in, ergo he'll be the one to go.

mental disability?? :hmm:

Couldn't there be some legal consequences if you kick him out and it's found out that it was because of the above stated reason?

Well, it's a month to month verbal agreement, no signed lease. It sounds like if he wanted to get pissy, he could stick around for about a month longer than what I want him to stick around for, but I also have the legal right to double his rent, say, if I wanted to (just checked with the state Atty general about this). Anyway, he didn't inform me about this fact before, and I feel pretty well deceived by this implication that he'd be paying the rent via his music. Of course, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be the type to take this to court.

Clarification: I pretty much was on the fence as to whether I'd want to keep him around anyway. I learned last night that when he got in Monday night, he saw the cats go and didn't do anything at the time. Also, I rent the place out, and I sublet it to him (landlord is fine with me subletting the place out).

WOMAN. Wo-man WOOOOOOOO- man
She was a theif,
you gotta belief,
she stole my heart and my cat...

obscure reference?

Good luck with your girlie cat.... if I was home I'd help you find her, but I'm stuck in Indiana... woo

Ah screw it, just going to refund this guy his money and have him leave at the end of the week... think that's fair?

And also, thanks for the advice and encouragement with the cat situation :D

Did the queen come back?

Not as yet, but she should be getting pretty hungry pretty quick now, and these sardines going out for her will definitely pique her interest.

I'm sure the puss will come back soon. Good decision on the roommate thing. It didn't sound like you'd ever really be comfortable with him there.
Please keep us updated on Miss Kitty. I'm just a little worried.

It snowed here last night, and I went out before people shoveled this morning to track as many cats in the area as I could. We have a couple strays/roaming cats in the neighborhood, not sure if this should worry me, but it does a little.

Did you tell this guy that your cats arent outside cats? Otherwise how would he of known that they shouldnt go outside.... sorry just playing devil's advocate.

Floyd, he knew. He was just irresponsibly drunk off his ass, and he realized it. However....

I went down to the Humane Society and looked at the strays they've picked up, as well as thumbed through the "found" reports. Came across a report from my neighborhood, filled out about 2 days after my little nerds went missing, and it described her to a T. My little princess is grooming herself right now right beside me, after being kept warm and fed by a most awesome lady from the neighborhood.

Sometimes, people rock.

That is wonderful news.........I've been concerned about you and your little princess. My cats are also "indoor cats", so I know the stress you have been experiencing. Cheers to your neighbor.

:) Thank goodness for neighborly love. I was just going to suggest the laborous task of going door to door to find the little feline.
I'm glad it ended well.

Not too obscure - I love this movie.

Anyway, back to the thread. How to kick someone out of your house:
1. say "House meeting in the kitchen"
2. look at (soon to be evicted )guy, as he gets up to go to the kitchen
3. ask "where are you going?"

:)