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Author Topic: Evil, foolish cat sabotage  (Read 475 times)

Weaver

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Evil, foolish cat sabotage
« on: March 02, 2021, 05:02:52 PM »

Early one morning we were woken up by a buzzing or fizzing noise and then a pop.  I heard the sound coming from under my side of the bed. The electricity was evidently now off, as my bedside lamp didn’t work. Janet went to the consumer unit and saw that the MCB for the bedroom had flipped off. She turned it back on and there was a bang and she saw it had flipped off again.

There was a cabinet by my side of the bed blocking the space between the bed and the wall, and Janet’s hands are bad from arthritis. I wasn’t strong or well enough to assist, so temporarily we ran a long extension cable from the next room into the bedroom and plugged a bedside light and my iPad into that. And so it remained for several days.

There was a kettle in the bedroom, which now didn’t work because that ring was off. Next day, Janet, wanting a cup of tea took the kettle and moved it into the office next door, plugged it into the wall and then fired it up. This destroyed my UPS which started beeping and ceased to deliver output power. She had effectively removed power from all the critical infrastructure- the router, all modems and the main switch so the whole network was now down. We could not get the crippled UPS to regain sanity so it was removed and devices moved over into another UPS which was still ok. I was not best pleased and told her that she had sinned, because moving non-approved high power devices into the office was verboten. Then immediately forgave her. Time to buy a new APC UPS.

Several days later Janet felt strong enough to move a small bookcase out from beside my bed, realising that that was in that space too. When this was removed, access to what was under the bed was now possible. A bit of digging reveal an 8-way Belkin mains distribution / surge protector device which was discoloured, yellow and smelled of cat pee. It was now clear who was the original guilty saboteur- some stupid cat, for reasons known only to god had decided to go under my bed and pee on the Belkin, thus shorting it all out.

We decide that in future such acts of feline vandalism must be effectively prevented, by physically blocking access to the space under the bed. Grr, stupid cats, who knows why? He or she whoever it was could have killed themselves, I presume.

So end of the tail, and a lesson learned, but who knows what they do what they do?
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burakkucat

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Re: Evil, foolish cat sabotage
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2021, 06:20:28 PM »

 :o  :(
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Evil, foolish cat sabotage
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2021, 08:32:44 PM »

I'm a little baffled that after hearing a buzzing, fizzing, popping noise, you'd even attempt to turn the circuit back on without investigating first.  Just asking for a fire.

Likewise its a bad idea to have anything electrical hidden under the bed.

As for the UPS, sounds like it had already failed and the kettle made it evident, kinda good to know BEFORE a crisis.

But yes, one of out cats did the same a long time ago .
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kitz

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Re: Evil, foolish cat sabotage
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2021, 08:47:22 PM »

Oh wow, you and the culprit cat are so lucky. :o

I must be fortunate as none of my cats pee where they shouldnt.   
Did have a short period of time when Zigs was poorly and he started peeing next to the toilet or toilet door.  I resolved that by placing a litter tray in the bathroom for him.  I'm just guessing that he was probably just being too lazy to go out or downstairs when he wasn't feeling good.     

Couldn't really shout at him as he was very ill at the time, and sometimes he would pee in the bath too.  Even now when he gets a flare and is sick, he tends to go into the bath to be sick, perhaps lesson learned by many times when I'd hear him start to heave, I'd quickly pick him up and put him in there, so it would be easier for me to clean.
I removed the tray ages ago, now he is better he either goes outside or will use the large litter tray downstairs.


Do you have a spare tray you can put in your room.....  and then gradually move it into a more convenient place such as the bathroom.    May be that one of them is being lazy and not want to go out/downstairs if its cold. 
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Weaver

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Re: Evil, foolish cat sabotage
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2021, 01:25:53 AM »

@Kitz we had already followed your advice about the bathroom litter tray. Just seemed to be a developmentally retarded kitten, who never would learn to go out to the toilet so we put in two litter trays, one downstairs and one in the bathroom which is right next to the bedroom so he has no excuse to pee in the bedroom.

Even though there’s a litter tray right there, he doesn’t use it properly and always pees just outside it; this used to be on a newspaper under the tray but Janet now puts down puppy pads which are absorbent and waterproof-backed so he can pee on those with no problem. He does go into the litter tray when he needs to do a crap at least.

Janet thinks that some cat(s) might pee under the bed because they go and hide under there when frightened of Thomas. I don’t agree at all, as they don’t stay under there for very long. Thomas was, I think, not around on the fateful day anyway, but who knows. I think that maybe once Somhairle found something under the bed and peed on it because he’s weird, and then the scent made him and others attracted to the area.

@Alex: The 8-way Belkin thing had slipped down underneath the bed as far as I can see. Agreed, we certainly will avoid having anything like that on the floor.

The UPS was really past it, ten years old. It was still working before in the sense that it produced an output, and recently was covering a period of mains power loss.

I agree about the total stupidity of turning the MCB back on. Such will be banned in future. Half asleep so clearly brains not yet functioning at all.
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kitz

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Re: Evil, foolish cat sabotage
« Reply #5 on: March 03, 2021, 09:10:36 AM »

I'd tend to agree, they don't usually pee where they will hide or sleep.  Perhaps just a bad habit or need to mark something, but yes I do recall you saying it can be problematic with one of yours    :(

Could try spraying the area you don't want them to pee with Feliway.   They supposedly wont pee where its recently been sprayed.  It is good to calm nervy cats.  I buy it for things like vet trips.   The last bottle I bought was on offer at zooplus for just £5, but as I don't need it often these days so Ive had the bottle ages and the offer has long expired.   It's worthwhile shopping around as Ive found the price can vary enormously. 

https://blog.feliway.com/ca_en/how-can-i-stop-my-cat-peeing-outside-the-litter-box#:~:text=You%20can%20also%20use%20FELIWAY,within%20the%20first%207%20days).
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Evil, foolish cat sabotage
« Reply #6 on: March 03, 2021, 10:15:48 AM »

I agree about the total stupidity of turning the MCB back on. Such will be banned in future. Half asleep so clearly brains not yet functioning at all.

Although I think when our cat peed on one, I turned it back on too, but I didn't hear any fizzing so thought it was just a fluke trip.
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Weaver

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Re: Evil, foolish cat sabotage
« Reply #7 on: March 03, 2021, 11:51:23 AM »

@kitz - thank you so much for the Feliway tip!
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