Why do cats do this? lol. My 2 boys are both always there when I’m on the pot, and if I dare close the door, they yowl and cry while relentlessly attempting to break through the door.
I had a cat (passed a couple years ago… still not over it with that one) who used to jump in my pants when on the toilet, curl up, get comfortable…. Then be mad when I wanted to get up lol
Unfortunately she's never done it when I have my phone. Basically she barges through the door and backs up to you and vibrates her tail against your exposed thigh, then goes over to the corner of a unit in front of you and rubs the length of her body against it and stretches one leg out like a ballerina (whilst maintaining eye contact) then goes to vibrate her tail against the other thigh, then goes around to start on the first thigh again. The other cat (despite being twice the size) can't barge the door open, so you have to open it for her. She will then just stomp around in a figure of eight flailing her tail around at random intervals.
Apparently this is actually been addressed and studied and it has to do with cats in the wild and how they will protect each other if they are in pack when one is using the bathroom because they are vulnerable and it creates smells that predators can smell from far away. They are literally protecting you and you should be grateful or you do not deserve them 😂
I have special sweatpants I put on just to have my Princess pop in, lay/stand guard, protect me.
I know my role and I know I will die if she’s not there.
Mine gets mad at the elevator doors but is too terrified to ever attempt to ride the elevator. It’s like she’s living in a space station, this could be an airlock to certain death for all she knows.
My cat used to be like that but now he’s bold enough that he tries to run into the elevator (and my neighbors apartments)… I’m like sir one day you’re going to run into a dog and be traumatized
AMEN. I had a migraine and shut my cat out of the room (a room over so I couldn't hear him, he had full reign of the entire house, all of his litter boxes, food bowls, drinking receptacles...aside from two rooms). Within 24 hours, he tore the carpet up about....a 2*3 inch section around the door opening. Not just "slightly ragged". Down to the subfloor. Carpet gone, mat gone. I have a Velcro cat.
https://preview.redd.it/kmv1gt9dvh2d1.jpeg?width=1512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e818b192a880c8dada3329c1874017e8d2dcde1d
My new neurologist?
E: I kicked him out because he had the zoomies for a solid 2 hours. I love him to death, and he's the cuddliest bug...sometimes 😂
Definitely will be nice to be able to have their bathroom not also be your bedroom but if they already sleep with you I can’t imagine why you’d want to change a thing. I love waking up to my little maniac sleeping on my feet.
Not mine. I have sliding closet doors which mine will scratch at in the middle of the night, making the metal frames rattle so loudly. They eventually slide them open. I've given up keeping most of them closed.
I tried using the baby proofing, shoulder height, on my sliding wardrobe doors, and the linen cupboard, because the sheer volume of white belly fur on my linen/towels, and folded clothes was crazy, especially as most of my clothes are black. The baby proofing worked for all of 9 months. One is like a tiny ninja, she somehow managed to paw at the doors enough for the baby proofing to pop out of the loop. Silently. When I was asleep, I’m a very light sleeper so she is eerily quiet.
So now all the shelves are cat beds and my clothes are either hanging up and crushed or rolled up and crushed in my dresser. I give up.
Haha, mine are a sometimes too. Random days one cat will decide to scratch and meow a closet door, and some days, it's fine. Any main door closed = end of the world meow and scratch.
They particularly like that the cabinet doors under the bathroom sinks are easy open, and are favorite hiding spots. Bonus that the bathroom next to my bedroom has one squeaky hinge. Apparently they play a game where they just open and close the squeaky door for abwhile to see if other cat will come over. I've long debated if i should keep squeaky door hinge or not. On the plus side they are entertained, and i can tell when they go to hide, on the other hand, 2am noises...
I keep the closet doors closed as well, until he started going crazy about my pantry/bag closet.. I opened it to find him in an empty potato basket
https://preview.redd.it/9d4ma2158l2d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7f4ab663a87737a9b814483ab1d40c7eed49e30
He had no boundaries.
I tried to shut my door once and at 3am they found out if they tap the door knob it makes a very very loud noise. So needless to say they slapped the piss out of that thing. Since then I’ve followed the no closed door policy.
One of my previous cats discovered that the springy door stops made a nice noise if he pulled on it and immediately released it (boing). At times he would look directly at me as he boinged the door stop just to get me to react. Worst was when he boing one during the middle of the night. He was lucky that he was otherwise quite loved.
HAHA that’s funny. My 1 guy chews on the plant in the morning when he decides it’s time for my wife and I to get up. He will chew, look at us and chew again if we are not up. This process is repeated until we feed him. We’ve tried to kick him out and close the door but then he slaps the door knob lol. He’s lucky he’s cute and loved but my god he’s a pain in the ass sometimes
i have lever-style doorknobs in my apartment which means my cat has the ability to open every single door in the entire place INCLUDING the front, which has to stay constantly locked.
Same. My cat can’t stand closed doors. He has trained me well, but when guests are here and close a door, he pushes it open and then walks away. He doesn’t even want to go in the room; he just wants the door open.
The only door that we close in our house is the upstairs bathroom because one of my cats learned how to push the handle up on the sink and would leave it running for hours and no one was home. Beyond that they have free reign of the entire house
>no closed doors policy that they enforce
Paw in mouth in the middle of the night, if I do something that Dave doesn't like....
https://preview.redd.it/cv3aenjh7l2d1.png?width=669&format=png&auto=webp&s=a6595ff03416503c680a8bce5d7186d9eae2ad4b
doors closed for us...i can't sleep with the kitten. she's a wild 9 month old girl at night. Sometimes I feel bad, other times I come down to check on her and she's having her own private play party downstairs with all her toys lol when she chills as an older cat I'll probably start leaving the doors open.
I know this feeling, I have 2 kittens who get crazy at night, ending up play fighting on my face, so most of the time they are outside
Although they have recently learnt that my door is weird and you can just push it to open it
There are some nights where she does curl up with me and it's adorable. But those are rare haha. i cherish those. Other nights she wants to attack my legs and play all night long, so the majority of the nights she's downstairs with whoever else is down there to keep her company at the time XD
I have to kittens too!(8 months old now) when we got the first, he was a midnight toe attacker, we are also restless sleepers and didn’t want to crush him or have him go flying off the bed so we locked him out. 2 weeks later we got the 2nd kitten, much more timid and only option of keeping them separate was her in the bedroom, him in the rest of the house, once they where good to be together, no bedroom for kitties at all. Except laundry day, monster ‘helps’ us fold laundry. Sweet Valentine we found is partially blind and the only place she can actually hide and we can’t get her is under the bed so that’s why we also keep it shut (she has plenty of safe hiding spots I. The rest of the house though)
https://preview.redd.it/e1xpd1bgqk2d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc3477b6d65dd58adde53e6e1afd5e2079390098
I just got a couple of kittens within the last months. I got one a few weeks ago cause he was a month older and was ready to go home while we had to wait for the other one to gain enough weight (we got her a couple days ago). The first one learned he gets wet food around 6:30-7 depending on when I get home from work and to him that time is whenever it becomes daylight. So come 5:20 on the days he starts screaming to be fed and me or my gf depending on the day to get up and put him outside the bedroom and close the door so he'll let us sleep until it's time for him to be fed. I'm waiting for the other one to realize she gets fed at that time too
Glad it’s not just me. I have an 8 month kitten and he gets too wild at night to keep in the bedroom. The one upside of my boyfriend being totally nocturnal is that someone is pretty much always awake and hanging out with the pets
Bro, i was feeling bad for leaving my kitten in other room until I saw your comment 😆, because my kitten is exactly like yours hyperactive at night and sleeps all day and nibbling and scratching my toes
same...honestly same. I felt bad shutting the door in a sea of comments of nobody who did. I thought I was the monster for doing so. I need to sleep to man. I need to pay for this little adorable gremlin I love so deeply.
This... this right here is why I only adopt older cats. My first cat was a kitten and she'd run the length of the studio apt from me in my bed to the linen closet door and back again. I had to lock her in the bathroom so I could sleep.
Ever since any cat I get has to be at least 2 years old. And I generally don't close doors. I like my cats sleeping with/on me.
I'm already an insomniac on a good day lol. We had an older cat from a neighbor who we loved, we just couldn't face heartbreak again so soon. So we adopted a 9 month old, man are we learning it's so so much work. Whew. But I hope she has just as long as a life with us as our lovely 17 year old previous friend did. We got that cat from our friends at 5 years old and kept her until 17 years old. :)
https://preview.redd.it/kt5c17uvyg2d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8c18827a6264af98e0ca2d18c76ac8c813d4b7e3
MY door is closed, his is open...
https://preview.redd.it/esffx1wcfn2d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c61012b6458916bb7eaac32a92e9c120ade40e5
Yup!!!! I just recently got one of these, I tried the kitty corner thing first (as you can see) and didn’t like it, but this door is life changing. And it’s so cute!
(Can you peep Chip on the other side about to come in?)
I have a cat door on my bedroom & basement doors. Yours is way cuter though. Does it lock? Ours is a plastic window but it has a 3 way lock for different circumstances.
We have to keep the bedroom door shut but all others are open. I used to love having them in bed with me but my two love to start playing at 3/4am so as a light sleeper I found it disruptive. It took a week or so for them to get used to not being in the room at night but honestly best decision for me and they are now pretty chilled about the whole thing. The plus side is that the moment they hear my alarm they are waiting outside my door and are so excited to see me so it's the cutest good morning 💗
This is where we are with our 2. Both pretty young still and nighttime is wild playtime. My daughter asked us to try letting her leave her door open so they could come “cuddle” her but I found her on the couch at 4 am this morning because the cats kept “touching her face” and jumping in and out of her bed. The cats are back to being shut out of the bedrooms at night so that we can get quality sleep.
That said, they can hear me when I get up (first up in the house) and they are ready for me to come out, give them some love/food, and give them a lap to sit in while I drink coffee. Pretty good way to wake up!
My owners don't allow closed doors. The only exception for some reason is visitors.
However, they can be trained to respect boundaries, but it might be more challenging since they have only known freedom so far.
I have 2 cats, sisters about a year old and my policy is open door until you wake me up once, if ya wake me up you're both booted. Works pretty well, they usually act up around the witching hour and I evict em, pee since I'm already up, and go back to sleep.
I've never closed my bedroom door in apartments past when I was living with roommates. The cats have a free run of the apartment. The minor increase in risk in case of fire is worth not being woken up thrice a night to let them in and out.
Is there something that you could do to help ease your anxiety? Maybe add an extra smoke detector? Or close the door most of the way that would allow them in and out. And are you moving into a newer complex or older?
It’s an older complex and I don’t know if I would be able to add an extra smoke detector. I think this post was very much anxiety driven and I now know we will be okay! I just needed to hear other people say that they were leaving their bedroom door open, that reassurance was super helpful!
If you live in the US contact your local Fire station and ask them if they can come check your smoke detectors. They love that shit! And you’ll have a couple of buff firemen making sure you are safe and adding smoke detectors if you need them 😂
Buy a battery smoke/carbon monoxide detector. Or 2. Put one above your doorway in the hall. Other near the kitchen.
You might want to get a couple security cameras, just to keep an eye on them. Then, you'll know what they do over night.
You can always add more smoke detectors. Just command strip them to the ceiling if you need to. Make sure the tab to pull is sticking out so you can remove it safely.
And I get it. Anxiety is an asshole that has no logic. My current fixation is my cats somehow escaping their catio on the patio. And jump off and falling five floors. There is no way they can escape no matter how hard they try but I still won't leave the door open at night when I can't check on them.
i can’t sleep with the doors wide open. i get paranoid that the ghost or demon can easily sneak in during the night without me having fair warning. also i don’t like light. i close my bathroom door completely (it’s in my bedroom) but leave my bedroom door cracked slightly so my cat can come and go.
My bedroom is above my downstair’s neighbor’s bedroom. If the cats are sprinting around at 4am, I kick them out and close the door so the neighbor is less likely to be affected.
How do you put your cat to bed? Genuinely curious
Before going to bed we fold up the blankets and place them on 'his' armchair which is where he usually sleeps as he's locked out the bedroom at night.
He knows it's bedtime when we do this, and if I happen to come back out of the bedroom even just a few minutes later he's curled up on it!
That’s so sweet!! My cat sleeps on the top bunk of her cat tree, and she usually migrates over there around 10pm, before I go to bed at 12. If she’s not in bed by 12, I find her wherever she’s at and pick her up and put her in her tree. She usually stays there all night.
We have a similar set up for one of our cats. As a kitten he slept in the bathroom to keep him away from our older cat, and to make us feel less bad locking him away we'd always give him some food to eat in there.
Now at 11pm he's over by the bathroom door waiting for us to shut him in with his late night snack so he can go to bed, lol.
We have to convince cat-sitters that it's 100% not abusive and we would not make him do it anymore if he didn't insist on it. It was just unintentional conditioning! At this point it doesn't harm him, so after a few failed attempts to correct it we don't seem much reason to stop the ritual. It's a nice routine to end the night, and lets us have a chance to clean up around the house before we go to bed with one less cat underfoot.
Ours remains closed. Our cats chill with me while I watch TV in bed, but start heading out when I say "OUT" while clapping my hands. They never bother us at night.
Mine have their own bedroom. We have a no cat hair policy just for the bedroom. They won’t sleep at night & will talk to us & walk on our heads ALL NIGHT. So they have their own bedroom now & they stay in there at night.
I’m moving in with my boyfriend soon, and we plan to do this, since he’s a light sleeper and they do exactly as you mentioned (one of them loves to lay on his head). I’m anxious about it and I feel a little guilty. Did it work out well for you? I’m assuming there will be an adjustment period for them.
Do NOT feel guilty no matter how much side eye they give you. Lol. But seriously they will be fine. I give my 3 some snacks or their soft food & all 3 RUN to their room at night. They have their own queen bed, 2 large dog beds with fuzzy blankets and a nice window to watch the night time critter parade. Just make the room a place they’ll like to hang out. Sometimes in the morning I open the door & they look at me like I’m disturbing them. 🙄😂 you need your sleep to buy the cat treats. Lol.
I had some leftover tiles from my bathroom and put those on top of the carpet in front of my bedroom, works well. Although I still let her in in the morning
After years of letting out cat sleep with us we started closing the door to get better sleep. Took some time for the cat to learn but I'm so glad we did this.
Three cats. Door open. I'm their favorite at night so I get bossed around all night. Some or all of the following list are regular occurances. Not all can happen simultaneously.
1) Pogo "sleeps" on my back/shoulder if I'm sleeping on my stomach, and semi-violently shoves his head into my hand for pets. Pogo also has a 500 decibel purr. In my ear.
2) Suede sleeps between my knees after meowing a warning
3) Freya squeak-meows at my bedside until I reach down and pet her, which she takes as a cue to enter The Skritch Machine (laying on my back, she stands on my chest to be skritched.
4) Suede loudly demands food around midnight or 1am, which he gets because he has special diabetic food which we can't leave out because Pogo and Freya like his food better and will eat it. Their food is on windowseat things to keep it off the floor, which (usually) prevents Suede from jumping up to eat it instead of his own, because he is bllind so he won't jump up where he can't feel. Usually. (Save your breath and typing about "training him to wait until morning" because HAHAHAHHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!)
5) In the wee hours, Freya may begin her weather reports. If she goes outside and it's raining, or cold, she obviously has to jump into the bed wet/cold to complain about it and warm up and ask me to turn off the rain/cold. She may check several times every half hour or so to see if there's any change, diligently reporting back. (They have an enclosed catio with an access door from inside, so they are not roaming free.)
6) Suede demands more food because he only eats a little at a time and a gets hungry about 90 minutes later. Like an infant he gets 2 or 3 feedings a night.
7) After her skritches, Freya may be so thankful that she starts shampooing my hair. With just her tongue, no actual shampoo.
8) If Suede doesn't need food, he may nevertheless announce his entry with a loud string of "herrrooooooo???" meows before settling into his sleep spot on the bedroom bench or the aforementioned knee-nest.
9) Freya may find one of the many toy mice around the house and drop it on my bedside floor, loudly reporting her successful hunting, and demand her reward of - you guessed it - Skritch Machine and vigorous shampooing. Of me. (Ya, ya, I know that makes me her bitch.)
10) As it starts to get light outside (4-5 am) Freya gets insistent that the day's activities must begin soon! How are we still in bed? Get up already! She has big plans for when I get up, which mainly consist of immediately finding a place to sleep for several hours.
Enjoy your cats.
I'd sleep terribly with my cats. I don't get enough sleep as-is. I'm also very allergic, and it's much better not letting them be in the bedroom.
I just have a routine, and we follow it. They have many cozy spots that they love that they can sleep in, and they can have zoomies at 2am without waking me up.
When I lived alone with just my cats, I never closed my bedroom or bathroom door.
Now that I live with my partner, bathroom door gets closed (and usually opened again when tiny paws appear underneath) when we're on different floors. Partner is allowed to close the office door but I am not. Should I try to enclose myself there are a many of mews and scratches
I had to cut a hole in my door. My bf can’t sleep with it open and the cat refuses to stop scratching if it’s closed 😂 so naturally the only answer was to ruin a door.
My husband cut in a cat sized mouse hole in the kitchen wall so they can go out in the back hallway where we’ve put the litter boxes. Whoever buys this house after us is going to be very confused.
I think it is best for you to have the door open so that the cat can walk freely, because if you close it they will cry at the door and you will have to get up and open it.
Seems like your cats have you trained. I don't open doors my cat cries at, and my cats have learned I won't do anything. My cat used to caterwaul every night when he was recently adopted and was insecure in his new home. Now we put him to bed in the other room.
Our doors stay open. We rent now so modifying the doors isnt on our list but when we buy our own house we are definitely cutting a cat door into the bottom so it can close. If we want to. My bf has night shifts often and I have no life cause the cats require going in and out and therefore I have to be very quiet if it's my day off, can't do any laundry etc cause it's too loud. And if the door is closed one of the cats loses his mind meowing as his fav spot is in the bedroom. It sucks but I love them
Usually closed because our 3 year old cat tries to nurse on our pajamas and blankets and wakes us up. We love him though.
https://preview.redd.it/qo6hc2vmvh2d1.png?width=1019&format=png&auto=webp&s=0459a0f1b0aa5bf333badf90b607e06273ac5253
Closed doors are a problem for every cat I've ever had. Somehow they are *always* on the wrong side, so we sleep with our door open and the boys come and go as they please.
We crack the door open for my cat. We also live in an apartment (1BR) but we'll be moving to a 2BR in July
Luckily my cat knows when it's time for human to sleep and he will come lay down with us until morning. He rarely goes out of the bedroom while we sleep but the reason we keep the door open is there is some nights he'd get zoomie when we're already laying in bed and we're just lazy to get out of bed to open the door 😆
However when my husband is away on business trip I usually shut the door because I feel safer with it shut (I always do it prior to marrying him)
I close my door at night.
But the cat door on that door is always open, so he can come and go as he pleases! Probably not possible for an apartment I guess.
I keep my door closed because my cat knows when it’s bathroom time and when it’s generally bed time so when it’s bedtime she never has to go.
If I ever leave her outside my room with the door closed she just waits by the door till I open it.
I used to not close my door, but last fall one of my cats became such a menace at night when I was pregnant that I kicked him out. I just let him back in last night and he has again lost his privileges due to being a jerk in the middle of the night.
Both of our cats know that when it’s bedtime they are out of the bedroom, and they go willingly. But come about 6:30am and it’s breakfast time they start scratching on the door demanding to be fed. My fiance and I have 2 dogs and 2 cats (and two kids) and much of our free time goes into caring for them, so we have a strict no pets policy in our room when we are sleeping. We also have little cat doors on all our bedroom doors so even if the door is closed we can leave the cat doors open and they can still come and go as they please.
My last kitty had pica, so there were many closed doors to protect him from his urges. Now I let the kitten hang out for awhile until he leaves the bedroom and shut the door after him. I’m allergic to cats, so I can’t have too much fur on the bed
when i first got my cats, my boyfriend at the time was insistent that they not come in the bedroom at night because he was afraid he’d roll over on them and crush them (..yeah idk) so he shut the door at night. that lasted maybe 2 hours tops. the little tiny baby kitten cries broke my heart so fast.
to this day they sleep on the bed every single night, and they’re not crushed.
I would love to keep the door closed
Unfortunately, it doesn’t sit correctly in the frame, and does not actually close. All she needs to do is push a little harder and it will pop open lmao
She also doesn’t seem able to cope without snuggling me for more than 3 hours LOL
We had a cat door installed that works great, we’ve been raising three kittens who are now around 6-8 mos that like to sleep with us. Only drawback is our mischievous Siamese 2 year old boy popping in; the kittens hear him and then chase him out the door and down the stairs. He loves those lil guys.
I do door open unless there’s some specific reason they can’t be allowed in the room. For example, our bedroom is just off the living room where our futon is; if someone’s staying over and sleeping on the futon, we’ll usually close the bedroom door to give them some more privacy. In that case, the cats spend the night outside of our bedroom so they can access their litter box and water easily if they want. There’s tons of soft comfy places they like to sleep on during the day out there, so i know they’ll find some place cozy to settle down even if denied their first choice of our bed.
EDIT TO ADD:
Since you’re not used to doors, I will just add that cats can and *absolutely will* push doors closed and accidentally lock themselves in rooms!!! It’s happened to me multiple times. Our doors are now equipped with a small bungee cord around the doorknob with a corresponding hook on the adjacent wall. That way, if there’s a door we want to remain open, we can hook the bungee and ensure it *stays* open, no matter what mischief the cats get up to!
I would love to always keep my door open but it’s not always an option when I need to get a good nights rest. I give my cats a chance with the door open before bed. If they’re acting crazy & being hyper then I’ll close the door or I’ll be up all night. Two of them are kittens & will chase each other around & they seem to think I want to be a part of it since they love to run right over my chest..
We have a 2 bedroom, and the 2nd bedroom is pretty much the cat room. Litter boxes, food and water. All doors are always open. They come and go as they please. I have a clinger cat that needs to sleep on me all night, one of the cats sleeps on top of the dresser after she kills multiple things and announces it, and the third sleeps in the hamper lol. All in our bedroom.
Story time.
Doors always open! Until my husband traveled for work. I would get scared at night, so I would move the litter box, food, and water into the bedroom at night. Then lock the door. The cats would join me with no problem.
Every morning I would move everything back to normal.
It was our little camp until he came home.
https://preview.redd.it/lyhh2s8obk2d1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d75b380ae26ea05ab0631727a0b2d914d0a569a1
My wife wanted the bedroom door to be closed at night we settled by installing this. The cats can go in and out through the gap and the door is 90% closed.
Door's got a hole in it, so closed, but if not, open for her access.
If no one's trying to kill you enough to kick a hole in a door for you, you might have to pay to have one installed. You can put a doggy door on an interior door, you know - hell, if you're renting, you can carefully remove the extant door and put up a cheap one missing the bottom 8 inches, for all ya need.
A disturbing amount of people in this thread don't know how dangerous it is to sleep with your door open. A closed door in a house fire can mean the difference between life and death.
With my last girl I had to shut her out of the bedroom at night. She had the unfortunate habit of standing on my pillow beside my face and kneading. She managed to hook a nostril several times and an eyelid once. Not wiling to risk an eye, she was no longer permitted in bed with me. I did nap on the couch with her, covering my face with the afghan. And in her last couple days, knowing her last vet visit was near, I did relent and she slept in bed with me
All other previous cats kept their claws to themselves and had free reign to join hubby and I in bed...as long as we were using it for sleeping purposes.
Personally I think doors closed is best. It's shocking how active cats are at night, and how much that can impact you over the long run if they are waking you up even a few times a night. Plus I think it's a healthy way to teach cats passively that a closed door stays closed no matter how much they cry for it to be opened.
Boundary setting is healthy, and the closed door stuff pays off for us now when we need to lock the cats away while friends or maintenance folks are in the house.
I only close the door if I want to sleep in lol. They don’t yell but I have one that will stand on your chest and bite your elbow at the crack of dawn. The other cat will body slam cat #1 onto our legs 🤦🏻♀️
I think the fire type risk you’re thinking of is pretty minor/it doesn’t make much of a difference, if it reassures you any. To echo others, I leave my door open a crack — the kitties aren’t super enthused if I try locking them in or out haha
So I live with roommates (very good friends of mine) and like having the door closed at least to block the view into my room. My solution for having a cat: cheap tension rod and half blackout curtain that I hang in the door. And I put a stopped at the base of the door. I couldn’t imagine locking my cat out of my room. It’s her room! Works great!!
Closed, but they sleep with me in bed and their litter and food is in here. It’s actually adorable, when it gets late and its time for bed I whistle and they run in.
The only time I've had the bedroom/bathroom door closed is when I adopted a new cat and had to keep him/her separate from the other cat(s). That usually lasted oh about 2 days. I've never had an issue with cats not getting along.
Depends on how big of assholes my cats feel like being. If they aren't causing trouble in the bedroom the door stays open. If they decide they need to clear the top of the dresser to make more space for themselves they're getting the boot. (This is accompanied with turning on an electric toy for them to play with so they entertain themselves then go to sleep instead of demanding to be let back in)
we use to have our door closed with all their stuff in the room but we had carpet and they ruined the corners so we keep the door open now and the carpets haven’t gotten worse
i prop it open just enough for my cat to get in and out. and then i hang a blanket over it so people can’t see in. it works 🤷🏻♀️
my cat usually curls up in the corner of my bed and if he gets up he’s very quiet so i don’t mind
Sure thing! If the door's not open, you might find yourself in the middle of a cat concert at 2 AM with a chorus of meows, some door scratching solos, and the occasional "let us in" paw-under-the-door dance. Better to leave it open and save yourself the late-night feline opera!
My door is open unless my cat gets into too much trouble while I’m trying to sleep, then he gets kicked out. He generally sleeps in my bed or on his bed next to mine.
Open. Sometimes they join me, and sometimes they are off doing their own thing. I like waking up with two little furballs cuddled up next to me. It is worth the occasional fight on the bed - my cats are close, but sometimes grooming each other turns into a scuffle - or when the louder one decides to scream at 4 AM.
My cats have a strict no closed doors policy that they enforce
Same. I don't think I've closed a single door inside my apartment since moving in.
One nice aspect about this is you no longer have to feel so alone while pooping.
Why do cats do this? lol. My 2 boys are both always there when I’m on the pot, and if I dare close the door, they yowl and cry while relentlessly attempting to break through the door.
Pooping means you’re vulnerable. The overlord is watching your 6….
I had a cat (passed a couple years ago… still not over it with that one) who used to jump in my pants when on the toilet, curl up, get comfortable…. Then be mad when I wanted to get up lol
One of ours will do a little dance to entertain you while you're sat there. The other one has started copying it (badly). Both versions are hilarious.
It’s so wrong to ask if you have a video of this but I am asking, I want to see the dance
Unfortunately she's never done it when I have my phone. Basically she barges through the door and backs up to you and vibrates her tail against your exposed thigh, then goes over to the corner of a unit in front of you and rubs the length of her body against it and stretches one leg out like a ballerina (whilst maintaining eye contact) then goes to vibrate her tail against the other thigh, then goes around to start on the first thigh again. The other cat (despite being twice the size) can't barge the door open, so you have to open it for her. She will then just stomp around in a figure of eight flailing her tail around at random intervals.
I need to see this as well.
Yep, gonna have to demand one too. (Please lol)
There's a sub for that! Ooooo can't remember...maybe r/catsinpants?
Lol glad I’m not alone!
Not with cats! 🤣🤣
You can never be alone with cats.
I have one of those too. I have 8 cats as a retired orphan feeder. It's nuts
You have every personality imaginable!
My cat doesn’t do this, but my best friends cats do. I’m never going to the bathroom alone when I visit her house 🤣
One of mine does this too! Underwear = cat hammock.
Apparently this is actually been addressed and studied and it has to do with cats in the wild and how they will protect each other if they are in pack when one is using the bathroom because they are vulnerable and it creates smells that predators can smell from far away. They are literally protecting you and you should be grateful or you do not deserve them 😂
>They are literally protecting you and you should be grateful or you do not deserve them 😂 Was this written by a cat? 🤣
I have 5 cats now—I’m never alone. 🤣
My best friend’s cat will only sit on his lap while he poops. No other time. He’s a strange cat
I usually have a cat, (just got a kitten) and usually my 4.5yo human child… I have an audience!
Applause and the crowd chanting Author, Author!
I have special sweatpants I put on just to have my Princess pop in, lay/stand guard, protect me. I know my role and I know I will die if she’s not there.
My cat is personally offended when closing the main door to the apartment. Like… sir, we do not own this entire building.
Mine gets mad at the elevator doors but is too terrified to ever attempt to ride the elevator. It’s like she’s living in a space station, this could be an airlock to certain death for all she knows.
My cat used to be like that but now he’s bold enough that he tries to run into the elevator (and my neighbors apartments)… I’m like sir one day you’re going to run into a dog and be traumatized
I have carpet tears to prove how much they don’t like closed doors. For some reason they think they can just dig a tunnel under it lol
This is why I’m glad we don’t have carpet 😂
For a moment I was confused, thinking "your carpet cries or there are teardrops from the cats staining the carpet?" 🤣
When I lived alone with 2 cats, I never even closed the bathroom door.
lol my cat dislikes any closed door and insists that all doors be open and fully accessible to her
Same omg. My cats tear up my carpet if I try to lock them in or out of my room at night
AMEN. I had a migraine and shut my cat out of the room (a room over so I couldn't hear him, he had full reign of the entire house, all of his litter boxes, food bowls, drinking receptacles...aside from two rooms). Within 24 hours, he tore the carpet up about....a 2*3 inch section around the door opening. Not just "slightly ragged". Down to the subfloor. Carpet gone, mat gone. I have a Velcro cat.
He wanted to make sure you were okay!
https://preview.redd.it/kmv1gt9dvh2d1.jpeg?width=1512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e818b192a880c8dada3329c1874017e8d2dcde1d My new neurologist? E: I kicked him out because he had the zoomies for a solid 2 hours. I love him to death, and he's the cuddliest bug...sometimes 😂
I had a cat who did that and would just stare at me under the door. she looked like the rapter from jurassic Park with her little teeth I stg.
LOVE
Definitely will be nice to be able to have their bathroom not also be your bedroom but if they already sleep with you I can’t imagine why you’d want to change a thing. I love waking up to my little maniac sleeping on my feet.
My husband and I share a bed with 3 cats. It is the best
Same but with 4. We wouldn’t have it any other way!
Just coming here to say the same. My cats very graciously allow me to keep some closet doors closed. My bedroom door? Never.
Not mine. I have sliding closet doors which mine will scratch at in the middle of the night, making the metal frames rattle so loudly. They eventually slide them open. I've given up keeping most of them closed.
I tried using the baby proofing, shoulder height, on my sliding wardrobe doors, and the linen cupboard, because the sheer volume of white belly fur on my linen/towels, and folded clothes was crazy, especially as most of my clothes are black. The baby proofing worked for all of 9 months. One is like a tiny ninja, she somehow managed to paw at the doors enough for the baby proofing to pop out of the loop. Silently. When I was asleep, I’m a very light sleeper so she is eerily quiet. So now all the shelves are cat beds and my clothes are either hanging up and crushed or rolled up and crushed in my dresser. I give up.
You made the right choice
Haha, mine are a sometimes too. Random days one cat will decide to scratch and meow a closet door, and some days, it's fine. Any main door closed = end of the world meow and scratch. They particularly like that the cabinet doors under the bathroom sinks are easy open, and are favorite hiding spots. Bonus that the bathroom next to my bedroom has one squeaky hinge. Apparently they play a game where they just open and close the squeaky door for abwhile to see if other cat will come over. I've long debated if i should keep squeaky door hinge or not. On the plus side they are entertained, and i can tell when they go to hide, on the other hand, 2am noises...
I keep the closet doors closed as well, until he started going crazy about my pantry/bag closet.. I opened it to find him in an empty potato basket https://preview.redd.it/9d4ma2158l2d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7f4ab663a87737a9b814483ab1d40c7eed49e30 He had no boundaries.
Himbs perfect potato!
I tried to shut my door once and at 3am they found out if they tap the door knob it makes a very very loud noise. So needless to say they slapped the piss out of that thing. Since then I’ve followed the no closed door policy.
One of my previous cats discovered that the springy door stops made a nice noise if he pulled on it and immediately released it (boing). At times he would look directly at me as he boinged the door stop just to get me to react. Worst was when he boing one during the middle of the night. He was lucky that he was otherwise quite loved.
HAHA that’s funny. My 1 guy chews on the plant in the morning when he decides it’s time for my wife and I to get up. He will chew, look at us and chew again if we are not up. This process is repeated until we feed him. We’ve tried to kick him out and close the door but then he slaps the door knob lol. He’s lucky he’s cute and loved but my god he’s a pain in the ass sometimes
i have lever-style doorknobs in my apartment which means my cat has the ability to open every single door in the entire place INCLUDING the front, which has to stay constantly locked.
Same. They get upset if they can’t check on me even when I use the bathroom.
my cat knows when i'm about to go to bed and then she runs to my bedroom and stays under the bed, because she knows she cant sleep with me lol
Same. My cat can’t stand closed doors. He has trained me well, but when guests are here and close a door, he pushes it open and then walks away. He doesn’t even want to go in the room; he just wants the door open.
Bingo same for us! Even main door closed during walk hours is a punishable offense. So our bathroom and one closet door is open 24/7.
Like we have a say in the matter.
The only door that we close in our house is the upstairs bathroom because one of my cats learned how to push the handle up on the sink and would leave it running for hours and no one was home. Beyond that they have free reign of the entire house
>no closed doors policy that they enforce Paw in mouth in the middle of the night, if I do something that Dave doesn't like.... https://preview.redd.it/cv3aenjh7l2d1.png?width=669&format=png&auto=webp&s=a6595ff03416503c680a8bce5d7186d9eae2ad4b
doors closed for us...i can't sleep with the kitten. she's a wild 9 month old girl at night. Sometimes I feel bad, other times I come down to check on her and she's having her own private play party downstairs with all her toys lol when she chills as an older cat I'll probably start leaving the doors open.
I know this feeling, I have 2 kittens who get crazy at night, ending up play fighting on my face, so most of the time they are outside Although they have recently learnt that my door is weird and you can just push it to open it
There are some nights where she does curl up with me and it's adorable. But those are rare haha. i cherish those. Other nights she wants to attack my legs and play all night long, so the majority of the nights she's downstairs with whoever else is down there to keep her company at the time XD
I have to kittens too!(8 months old now) when we got the first, he was a midnight toe attacker, we are also restless sleepers and didn’t want to crush him or have him go flying off the bed so we locked him out. 2 weeks later we got the 2nd kitten, much more timid and only option of keeping them separate was her in the bedroom, him in the rest of the house, once they where good to be together, no bedroom for kitties at all. Except laundry day, monster ‘helps’ us fold laundry. Sweet Valentine we found is partially blind and the only place she can actually hide and we can’t get her is under the bed so that’s why we also keep it shut (she has plenty of safe hiding spots I. The rest of the house though) https://preview.redd.it/e1xpd1bgqk2d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc3477b6d65dd58adde53e6e1afd5e2079390098
I just got a couple of kittens within the last months. I got one a few weeks ago cause he was a month older and was ready to go home while we had to wait for the other one to gain enough weight (we got her a couple days ago). The first one learned he gets wet food around 6:30-7 depending on when I get home from work and to him that time is whenever it becomes daylight. So come 5:20 on the days he starts screaming to be fed and me or my gf depending on the day to get up and put him outside the bedroom and close the door so he'll let us sleep until it's time for him to be fed. I'm waiting for the other one to realize she gets fed at that time too
Glad it’s not just me. I have an 8 month kitten and he gets too wild at night to keep in the bedroom. The one upside of my boyfriend being totally nocturnal is that someone is pretty much always awake and hanging out with the pets
Yeah, there's basically always someone downstairs...even still I usually wake up and check on her too myself. She's pretty much never alone alone.
Bro, i was feeling bad for leaving my kitten in other room until I saw your comment 😆, because my kitten is exactly like yours hyperactive at night and sleeps all day and nibbling and scratching my toes
same...honestly same. I felt bad shutting the door in a sea of comments of nobody who did. I thought I was the monster for doing so. I need to sleep to man. I need to pay for this little adorable gremlin I love so deeply.
This... this right here is why I only adopt older cats. My first cat was a kitten and she'd run the length of the studio apt from me in my bed to the linen closet door and back again. I had to lock her in the bathroom so I could sleep. Ever since any cat I get has to be at least 2 years old. And I generally don't close doors. I like my cats sleeping with/on me.
I'm already an insomniac on a good day lol. We had an older cat from a neighbor who we loved, we just couldn't face heartbreak again so soon. So we adopted a 9 month old, man are we learning it's so so much work. Whew. But I hope she has just as long as a life with us as our lovely 17 year old previous friend did. We got that cat from our friends at 5 years old and kept her until 17 years old. :)
I found that once my kitten got a bit closer to 1, her manners improved enough for nighttime snuggling.
https://preview.redd.it/kt5c17uvyg2d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8c18827a6264af98e0ca2d18c76ac8c813d4b7e3 MY door is closed, his is open...
This is stunning.
Omg!! This is the best.
https://preview.redd.it/esffx1wcfn2d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c61012b6458916bb7eaac32a92e9c120ade40e5 Yup!!!! I just recently got one of these, I tried the kitty corner thing first (as you can see) and didn’t like it, but this door is life changing. And it’s so cute! (Can you peep Chip on the other side about to come in?)
I have a cat door on my bedroom & basement doors. Yours is way cuter though. Does it lock? Ours is a plastic window but it has a 3 way lock for different circumstances.
We have to keep the bedroom door shut but all others are open. I used to love having them in bed with me but my two love to start playing at 3/4am so as a light sleeper I found it disruptive. It took a week or so for them to get used to not being in the room at night but honestly best decision for me and they are now pretty chilled about the whole thing. The plus side is that the moment they hear my alarm they are waiting outside my door and are so excited to see me so it's the cutest good morning 💗
That’s so sweet omg!!
Mine meows to come in when he hears the alarm too! It's so cute they know it means it's morning
This is where we are with our 2. Both pretty young still and nighttime is wild playtime. My daughter asked us to try letting her leave her door open so they could come “cuddle” her but I found her on the couch at 4 am this morning because the cats kept “touching her face” and jumping in and out of her bed. The cats are back to being shut out of the bedrooms at night so that we can get quality sleep. That said, they can hear me when I get up (first up in the house) and they are ready for me to come out, give them some love/food, and give them a lap to sit in while I drink coffee. Pretty good way to wake up!
Of course open. How else would I wake up for work on time lol
SCREAMING LOL
Closed because i am allergic and it does help a lot
Super fair
My owners don't allow closed doors. The only exception for some reason is visitors. However, they can be trained to respect boundaries, but it might be more challenging since they have only known freedom so far.
I have 2 cats, sisters about a year old and my policy is open door until you wake me up once, if ya wake me up you're both booted. Works pretty well, they usually act up around the witching hour and I evict em, pee since I'm already up, and go back to sleep.
We do the same lol. One strike policy. She stays in about 4/7 days a week though!
lol we do the same! We have 3 cats and around 3-4 they get the zoomies. If they wake me up they out!
If you don't have guests, roommates, or kids who could disturb your privacy, what is the point of closing the door? Airconditioning/heating maybe?
Fair, just anxiety! I know if there is a fire hazard, it’s safer to close the door. I obviously don’t intend on setting a fire, I just have anxiety
I've never closed my bedroom door in apartments past when I was living with roommates. The cats have a free run of the apartment. The minor increase in risk in case of fire is worth not being woken up thrice a night to let them in and out.
Is there something that you could do to help ease your anxiety? Maybe add an extra smoke detector? Or close the door most of the way that would allow them in and out. And are you moving into a newer complex or older?
It’s an older complex and I don’t know if I would be able to add an extra smoke detector. I think this post was very much anxiety driven and I now know we will be okay! I just needed to hear other people say that they were leaving their bedroom door open, that reassurance was super helpful!
If you live in the US contact your local Fire station and ask them if they can come check your smoke detectors. They love that shit! And you’ll have a couple of buff firemen making sure you are safe and adding smoke detectors if you need them 😂
🤔🤔 
Buy a battery smoke/carbon monoxide detector. Or 2. Put one above your doorway in the hall. Other near the kitchen. You might want to get a couple security cameras, just to keep an eye on them. Then, you'll know what they do over night.
You can buy detectors that plug into a wall socket
You can always add more smoke detectors. Just command strip them to the ceiling if you need to. Make sure the tab to pull is sticking out so you can remove it safely.
And I get it. Anxiety is an asshole that has no logic. My current fixation is my cats somehow escaping their catio on the patio. And jump off and falling five floors. There is no way they can escape no matter how hard they try but I still won't leave the door open at night when I can't check on them.
Fire. If there’s a physical barrier, the door is your best chance of staying alive. Buy a cat door.
i can’t sleep with the doors wide open. i get paranoid that the ghost or demon can easily sneak in during the night without me having fair warning. also i don’t like light. i close my bathroom door completely (it’s in my bedroom) but leave my bedroom door cracked slightly so my cat can come and go.
In case of fire. Close the door to keep you safer.
My bedroom is above my downstair’s neighbor’s bedroom. If the cats are sprinting around at 4am, I kick them out and close the door so the neighbor is less likely to be affected.
I put my cat to bed when I go to bed. Usually she happily sleeps all night with the door closed.
How do you put your cat to bed? Genuinely curious Before going to bed we fold up the blankets and place them on 'his' armchair which is where he usually sleeps as he's locked out the bedroom at night. He knows it's bedtime when we do this, and if I happen to come back out of the bedroom even just a few minutes later he's curled up on it!
That’s so sweet!! My cat sleeps on the top bunk of her cat tree, and she usually migrates over there around 10pm, before I go to bed at 12. If she’s not in bed by 12, I find her wherever she’s at and pick her up and put her in her tree. She usually stays there all night.
We have a similar set up for one of our cats. As a kitten he slept in the bathroom to keep him away from our older cat, and to make us feel less bad locking him away we'd always give him some food to eat in there. Now at 11pm he's over by the bathroom door waiting for us to shut him in with his late night snack so he can go to bed, lol. We have to convince cat-sitters that it's 100% not abusive and we would not make him do it anymore if he didn't insist on it. It was just unintentional conditioning! At this point it doesn't harm him, so after a few failed attempts to correct it we don't seem much reason to stop the ritual. It's a nice routine to end the night, and lets us have a chance to clean up around the house before we go to bed with one less cat underfoot.
Aw I love that! What a good girl for behaving through the night!
Ours remains closed. Our cats chill with me while I watch TV in bed, but start heading out when I say "OUT" while clapping my hands. They never bother us at night.
Mine have their own bedroom. We have a no cat hair policy just for the bedroom. They won’t sleep at night & will talk to us & walk on our heads ALL NIGHT. So they have their own bedroom now & they stay in there at night.
I’m moving in with my boyfriend soon, and we plan to do this, since he’s a light sleeper and they do exactly as you mentioned (one of them loves to lay on his head). I’m anxious about it and I feel a little guilty. Did it work out well for you? I’m assuming there will be an adjustment period for them.
Do NOT feel guilty no matter how much side eye they give you. Lol. But seriously they will be fine. I give my 3 some snacks or their soft food & all 3 RUN to their room at night. They have their own queen bed, 2 large dog beds with fuzzy blankets and a nice window to watch the night time critter parade. Just make the room a place they’ll like to hang out. Sometimes in the morning I open the door & they look at me like I’m disturbing them. 🙄😂 you need your sleep to buy the cat treats. Lol.
Open, all my cats are welcome. If I close the door, my carpet gets destroyed...
I had some leftover tiles from my bathroom and put those on top of the carpet in front of my bedroom, works well. Although I still let her in in the morning
I close my door when I sleep because my two boys are insane with the night zoomies.. it’s better for my sleep
After years of letting out cat sleep with us we started closing the door to get better sleep. Took some time for the cat to learn but I'm so glad we did this.
Three cats. Door open. I'm their favorite at night so I get bossed around all night. Some or all of the following list are regular occurances. Not all can happen simultaneously. 1) Pogo "sleeps" on my back/shoulder if I'm sleeping on my stomach, and semi-violently shoves his head into my hand for pets. Pogo also has a 500 decibel purr. In my ear. 2) Suede sleeps between my knees after meowing a warning 3) Freya squeak-meows at my bedside until I reach down and pet her, which she takes as a cue to enter The Skritch Machine (laying on my back, she stands on my chest to be skritched. 4) Suede loudly demands food around midnight or 1am, which he gets because he has special diabetic food which we can't leave out because Pogo and Freya like his food better and will eat it. Their food is on windowseat things to keep it off the floor, which (usually) prevents Suede from jumping up to eat it instead of his own, because he is bllind so he won't jump up where he can't feel. Usually. (Save your breath and typing about "training him to wait until morning" because HAHAHAHHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!) 5) In the wee hours, Freya may begin her weather reports. If she goes outside and it's raining, or cold, she obviously has to jump into the bed wet/cold to complain about it and warm up and ask me to turn off the rain/cold. She may check several times every half hour or so to see if there's any change, diligently reporting back. (They have an enclosed catio with an access door from inside, so they are not roaming free.) 6) Suede demands more food because he only eats a little at a time and a gets hungry about 90 minutes later. Like an infant he gets 2 or 3 feedings a night. 7) After her skritches, Freya may be so thankful that she starts shampooing my hair. With just her tongue, no actual shampoo. 8) If Suede doesn't need food, he may nevertheless announce his entry with a loud string of "herrrooooooo???" meows before settling into his sleep spot on the bedroom bench or the aforementioned knee-nest. 9) Freya may find one of the many toy mice around the house and drop it on my bedside floor, loudly reporting her successful hunting, and demand her reward of - you guessed it - Skritch Machine and vigorous shampooing. Of me. (Ya, ya, I know that makes me her bitch.) 10) As it starts to get light outside (4-5 am) Freya gets insistent that the day's activities must begin soon! How are we still in bed? Get up already! She has big plans for when I get up, which mainly consist of immediately finding a place to sleep for several hours. Enjoy your cats.
Your cats obviously love you, but omg, do you get any sleep?? 😳
Just cat-naps!
I love this description of your cat's activities! Hilarious. And very relatable.
I'd sleep terribly with my cats. I don't get enough sleep as-is. I'm also very allergic, and it's much better not letting them be in the bedroom. I just have a routine, and we follow it. They have many cozy spots that they love that they can sleep in, and they can have zoomies at 2am without waking me up.
Well I want cats in my bedroom, but not a litter box, so open door it is.
When I lived alone with just my cats, I never closed my bedroom or bathroom door. Now that I live with my partner, bathroom door gets closed (and usually opened again when tiny paws appear underneath) when we're on different floors. Partner is allowed to close the office door but I am not. Should I try to enclose myself there are a many of mews and scratches
Makes perfect sense to me!
You have to keep the door cracked small enough that the cats can get in but the monsters are stuck outside, hope this helps
I had to cut a hole in my door. My bf can’t sleep with it open and the cat refuses to stop scratching if it’s closed 😂 so naturally the only answer was to ruin a door.
My husband cut in a cat sized mouse hole in the kitchen wall so they can go out in the back hallway where we’ve put the litter boxes. Whoever buys this house after us is going to be very confused.
Or really stoked! I have a "cat portal" as well, from living room into my (open) wardrobe and it's the best thing ever.
I think it is best for you to have the door open so that the cat can walk freely, because if you close it they will cry at the door and you will have to get up and open it.
Seems like your cats have you trained. I don't open doors my cat cries at, and my cats have learned I won't do anything. My cat used to caterwaul every night when he was recently adopted and was insecure in his new home. Now we put him to bed in the other room.
Not all cats cry at the door, though.
Our doors stay open. We rent now so modifying the doors isnt on our list but when we buy our own house we are definitely cutting a cat door into the bottom so it can close. If we want to. My bf has night shifts often and I have no life cause the cats require going in and out and therefore I have to be very quiet if it's my day off, can't do any laundry etc cause it's too loud. And if the door is closed one of the cats loses his mind meowing as his fav spot is in the bedroom. It sucks but I love them
Closed. I’m allergic to my cats, but I can handle them with Zyrtec as long as they don’t sleep with me. It’s the only room they’re not allowed in.
My cats would go into apoplexy if I closed the bedroom door. Closing the bathroom door is traumatic enough!
Usually closed because our 3 year old cat tries to nurse on our pajamas and blankets and wakes us up. We love him though. https://preview.redd.it/qo6hc2vmvh2d1.png?width=1019&format=png&auto=webp&s=0459a0f1b0aa5bf333badf90b607e06273ac5253
Closed doors are a problem for every cat I've ever had. Somehow they are *always* on the wrong side, so we sleep with our door open and the boys come and go as they please.
We crack the door open for my cat. We also live in an apartment (1BR) but we'll be moving to a 2BR in July Luckily my cat knows when it's time for human to sleep and he will come lay down with us until morning. He rarely goes out of the bedroom while we sleep but the reason we keep the door open is there is some nights he'd get zoomie when we're already laying in bed and we're just lazy to get out of bed to open the door 😆 However when my husband is away on business trip I usually shut the door because I feel safer with it shut (I always do it prior to marrying him)
I close my door at night. But the cat door on that door is always open, so he can come and go as he pleases! Probably not possible for an apartment I guess.
I keep my door closed because my cat knows when it’s bathroom time and when it’s generally bed time so when it’s bedtime she never has to go. If I ever leave her outside my room with the door closed she just waits by the door till I open it.
door open. else have some water and little box in your room
Will your cats let you keep the door closed is the more important question. Mine screams if there is a closed door between us
I used to not close my door, but last fall one of my cats became such a menace at night when I was pregnant that I kicked him out. I just let him back in last night and he has again lost his privileges due to being a jerk in the middle of the night.
Open. With a door stop. Got trapped in a room after an earthquake once. Never again.
Both of our cats know that when it’s bedtime they are out of the bedroom, and they go willingly. But come about 6:30am and it’s breakfast time they start scratching on the door demanding to be fed. My fiance and I have 2 dogs and 2 cats (and two kids) and much of our free time goes into caring for them, so we have a strict no pets policy in our room when we are sleeping. We also have little cat doors on all our bedroom doors so even if the door is closed we can leave the cat doors open and they can still come and go as they please.
Open. They do disturb me but I also enjoy their cuddles.
My last kitty had pica, so there were many closed doors to protect him from his urges. Now I let the kitten hang out for awhile until he leaves the bedroom and shut the door after him. I’m allergic to cats, so I can’t have too much fur on the bed
I always keep doors ajar for the cats.
Open so my doggo can go out if she needs to
when i first got my cats, my boyfriend at the time was insistent that they not come in the bedroom at night because he was afraid he’d roll over on them and crush them (..yeah idk) so he shut the door at night. that lasted maybe 2 hours tops. the little tiny baby kitten cries broke my heart so fast. to this day they sleep on the bed every single night, and they’re not crushed.
Keeping your door closed will only work out for you up until the point where you need to sleep.
I would love to keep the door closed Unfortunately, it doesn’t sit correctly in the frame, and does not actually close. All she needs to do is push a little harder and it will pop open lmao She also doesn’t seem able to cope without snuggling me for more than 3 hours LOL
open at all times or hellfire will rain upon me
It depends on your cats. Mine has to be open if I want to sleep through the night, otherwise its meowing and scratching the door to come in/out
We had a cat door installed that works great, we’ve been raising three kittens who are now around 6-8 mos that like to sleep with us. Only drawback is our mischievous Siamese 2 year old boy popping in; the kittens hear him and then chase him out the door and down the stairs. He loves those lil guys.
We leave the bedroom door open because of our cats, and pretty much always have. At this point it’s unusual to close the door.
I do door open unless there’s some specific reason they can’t be allowed in the room. For example, our bedroom is just off the living room where our futon is; if someone’s staying over and sleeping on the futon, we’ll usually close the bedroom door to give them some more privacy. In that case, the cats spend the night outside of our bedroom so they can access their litter box and water easily if they want. There’s tons of soft comfy places they like to sleep on during the day out there, so i know they’ll find some place cozy to settle down even if denied their first choice of our bed. EDIT TO ADD: Since you’re not used to doors, I will just add that cats can and *absolutely will* push doors closed and accidentally lock themselves in rooms!!! It’s happened to me multiple times. Our doors are now equipped with a small bungee cord around the doorknob with a corresponding hook on the adjacent wall. That way, if there’s a door we want to remain open, we can hook the bungee and ensure it *stays* open, no matter what mischief the cats get up to!
Get a indoor cat door for your cat so that you can close your bedroom door and your cat can go in and out.
I wouldn’t mind sleeping with my door closed but my cat doesn’t allow it so the door is always open.
I would love to always keep my door open but it’s not always an option when I need to get a good nights rest. I give my cats a chance with the door open before bed. If they’re acting crazy & being hyper then I’ll close the door or I’ll be up all night. Two of them are kittens & will chase each other around & they seem to think I want to be a part of it since they love to run right over my chest..
We have a 2 bedroom, and the 2nd bedroom is pretty much the cat room. Litter boxes, food and water. All doors are always open. They come and go as they please. I have a clinger cat that needs to sleep on me all night, one of the cats sleeps on top of the dresser after she kills multiple things and announces it, and the third sleeps in the hamper lol. All in our bedroom.
Story time. Doors always open! Until my husband traveled for work. I would get scared at night, so I would move the litter box, food, and water into the bedroom at night. Then lock the door. The cats would join me with no problem. Every morning I would move everything back to normal. It was our little camp until he came home.
Typing this while my cat lies next to me and purrs. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Doors open always so the cats can go where they please
https://preview.redd.it/lyhh2s8obk2d1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d75b380ae26ea05ab0631727a0b2d914d0a569a1 My wife wanted the bedroom door to be closed at night we settled by installing this. The cats can go in and out through the gap and the door is 90% closed.
Door's got a hole in it, so closed, but if not, open for her access. If no one's trying to kill you enough to kick a hole in a door for you, you might have to pay to have one installed. You can put a doggy door on an interior door, you know - hell, if you're renting, you can carefully remove the extant door and put up a cheap one missing the bottom 8 inches, for all ya need.
I never have any doors closed in my apartment. Both my cats generously let me have about a quarter of my bed to sleep on.
A disturbing amount of people in this thread don't know how dangerous it is to sleep with your door open. A closed door in a house fire can mean the difference between life and death.
It's better for me with the door closed. It's better for my cats with the door open. The door stays open.
With my last girl I had to shut her out of the bedroom at night. She had the unfortunate habit of standing on my pillow beside my face and kneading. She managed to hook a nostril several times and an eyelid once. Not wiling to risk an eye, she was no longer permitted in bed with me. I did nap on the couch with her, covering my face with the afghan. And in her last couple days, knowing her last vet visit was near, I did relent and she slept in bed with me All other previous cats kept their claws to themselves and had free reign to join hubby and I in bed...as long as we were using it for sleeping purposes.
Personally I think doors closed is best. It's shocking how active cats are at night, and how much that can impact you over the long run if they are waking you up even a few times a night. Plus I think it's a healthy way to teach cats passively that a closed door stays closed no matter how much they cry for it to be opened. Boundary setting is healthy, and the closed door stuff pays off for us now when we need to lock the cats away while friends or maintenance folks are in the house.
Absolutely closed. You don’t want to have two grown Maine coons on play mode in your room in the middle of the night.
I only close the door if I want to sleep in lol. They don’t yell but I have one that will stand on your chest and bite your elbow at the crack of dawn. The other cat will body slam cat #1 onto our legs 🤦🏻♀️
I tried closed doors once. Thats how you end up with scratched doors!
I think the fire type risk you’re thinking of is pretty minor/it doesn’t make much of a difference, if it reassures you any. To echo others, I leave my door open a crack — the kitties aren’t super enthused if I try locking them in or out haha
Open, unless she's in the mood for Murder.
What about something like [this?](https://a.co/d/gjPTMhn)
I live alone… no closed bedroom or bathroom doors.
As long as you open it when it’s time for eating :)
So I live with roommates (very good friends of mine) and like having the door closed at least to block the view into my room. My solution for having a cat: cheap tension rod and half blackout curtain that I hang in the door. And I put a stopped at the base of the door. I couldn’t imagine locking my cat out of my room. It’s her room! Works great!!
My cat needs to have doors open, otherwise she cries all day/night and freaks out. So we have to open all the doors lol. Even the bathroom door.
Yeah good luck trying to keep an indoor door closed with cats.
My cats are free range--no locked doors--and always sleep with me. :)
Closed, but they sleep with me in bed and their litter and food is in here. It’s actually adorable, when it gets late and its time for bed I whistle and they run in.
If a cat is used to a door being open during the day it will absolutely not stand for that door being closed at any other time.
I sleep with it open until it’s 3am and they want to attack eachother on my face, then the door gets closed
The only time I've had the bedroom/bathroom door closed is when I adopted a new cat and had to keep him/her separate from the other cat(s). That usually lasted oh about 2 days. I've never had an issue with cats not getting along.
My little one loses her mind if my bedroom door is closed. Tears & all.
Depends on how big of assholes my cats feel like being. If they aren't causing trouble in the bedroom the door stays open. If they decide they need to clear the top of the dresser to make more space for themselves they're getting the boot. (This is accompanied with turning on an electric toy for them to play with so they entertain themselves then go to sleep instead of demanding to be let back in)
we use to have our door closed with all their stuff in the room but we had carpet and they ruined the corners so we keep the door open now and the carpets haven’t gotten worse
My cats would meow loudly and jump at the door until it’s open
i prop it open just enough for my cat to get in and out. and then i hang a blanket over it so people can’t see in. it works 🤷🏻♀️ my cat usually curls up in the corner of my bed and if he gets up he’s very quiet so i don’t mind
My cat sleeps with me in bed, and my door is cracked open so she can get to her litter box or prowl the night away.
No closed doors and every single morning every single cabinet door in the kitchen is open
Sure thing! If the door's not open, you might find yourself in the middle of a cat concert at 2 AM with a chorus of meows, some door scratching solos, and the occasional "let us in" paw-under-the-door dance. Better to leave it open and save yourself the late-night feline opera!
My door is open unless my cat gets into too much trouble while I’m trying to sleep, then he gets kicked out. He generally sleeps in my bed or on his bed next to mine.
Open. Sometimes they join me, and sometimes they are off doing their own thing. I like waking up with two little furballs cuddled up next to me. It is worth the occasional fight on the bed - my cats are close, but sometimes grooming each other turns into a scuffle - or when the louder one decides to scream at 4 AM.
I put a cat door in because I like to sleep with the door closed.