Our automatic litter box seals the dirty litter compartment, so even after a week away this doesn't happen.
When I came home from a trip last month I was thankful to learn that my house still smells of new house smell 😮💨
Yeah, in the summers we go visit my mom's down the shore for anywhere from a couple nights two a week, and when we get home I'm always blown away. It just is.
I was exactly in the same situation, glad it was just the trash I forgot 2 weeks ago.
House smells can build up or become stale in the absence of people, so it depends on how much the actions of the cat sitter and cat affected the air when they were away.
Their house probably smells a little like what it does after their trip away, but not exactly.
Anecdotally, I remember coming home to a smell when we'd get back from holidays as a kid and it wasn't the same smell as when I'd get home from school, even if I arrived to no-one else there.
When I was a kid and we got back after a week vacation the house definitely smelled weird. As an adult visiting my parents when they're home it doesn't have that smell. But if my parents are away and I visit the house, the smell is back. Weird, but I get it that the air can get stale, especially since it's an old wooden house
Pets have odors, but it isn't nearly as overwhelming if you are around it all the time. Sometimes houses have faint smells like a musty basement that are enough to ignore when around them all the time. Even residual smells from cooking can impact how a house smells!
Absence makes things the brain normally filters out noticeable again. Also going elsewhere with different smells can make home smells more noticeable. Heck, when I get back from trips sometimes the house smells wonderful because it smells like home!
It's known as olfactory fatigue.
Also most of the issue is that people are lazy as fuck and a lot of cat owners just aren't cleaning their house as much as they should, but most importantly, scooping the litter box.
Every single night before bed I scoop my cats litter box, add fresh litter, and sweep around it. Every other weekend I mop around it, and try to vacuum up cat hair off surfaces she sits on.
There are people that change their bed sheets every week or two, and people who give you a blank stare when you ask them when they last changed their sheets, like they didn't realize that was a thing you should do. The latter is like half of humanity, and some of them own cats and let them shit in the same box for weeks without emptying it.
I have never known a cat that was willing to shit in a neglected litter box. They just start going elsewhere.
My cats would always go in the litter box no matter how horrifying I let it get. It was actually pretty impressive.
Litter and stale cat food. Yes.
That kitty nuzzle tho… ❤️
I run a tight ship. Other than the odd moments like when something in the garbage just started going bad, my "is this what my house smells like" moments are always good. But, no I don't have cats, so maybe that's part of it?
Since we're not in a cat community, I feel comfortable sharing that I hate cats. I can smell your cat when I arrive at your house, and it disgusts me. There, I said it.
Love cats but hate cat houses. One room becomes the cat room, it's got a litter box and the litters everywhere and it's no longer your room. It's the cat pee and poop room and your job is to clean that room not own it.
It sounds like you’re behind on your mandatory dose of toxoplasmosis.
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