Into the Dungeon

We have a room in our home that is for nothing but storage.  I have shut off the heat to the room since we don't really live in there.  There is only one tiny window in the room also ...thus I call it the dungeon.  It's packed to the ceiling with boxes.  Many of them contain Christmas decorations.  It's time to bundle up and head into the dungeon.  I also keep the cat carriers in there for easy access.  Can you imagine how many of those we have?  Actually not as many as you would think.  We have one that's big enough for a huge Lab, one that's big enough for three cats, one that's big enough for two and then a single one.  For space I have to break them down and put them in the closet when not in use.  Another fine use for the room is hiding the Christmas presents.  There's so much stuff in there you can't focus on any one singe item, so it provides a super hiding place. We keep extra stuff in there...like dry cat food, bird seed paper towels etc.  OK....the reason I mentioned the dungeon is if I don't start putting out the Christmas decorations they won't get out.  The closer it gets to Christmas the more I seem to lose steam.

There is always a problem with the cats wanting into the room too.  You have to be aware and alert when you open that door or they will shoot into the room and you won't see them.  There are about a trillion places to hid in that room and just like the Christmas presents...you won't see them.  Next thing you know, there's a crashing sound coming from that direction..... and one very innocent ball of fluff sitting in the middle of the floor after riding several of your prized possessions to the floor from the top of a pile.  This scene is repeated several times during the unpacking of the decorations.  Maybe I should try a baby gate?  I know some of them could jump over it but the element of surprise might get me in and out of the room a couple of times before they got wise.

One of my biggest pet peeves is that everything in this house is covered because of the cats.  There's a cover on all sofas, chairs, in front of the fireplace, throw rugs in front of the doors to cover the spots they've torn up and even small rugs under some of the doors in the interior of the house because Paddy has separation anxiety and rips up the carpet under the doors if he get left alone. If I had the money..... I would get those colorful cat claw covers and glue them on each one of the cats.  They don't go outdoors anyway, so what's the harm?

 I guess you could say this house is run solely for the comfort of the animals.(not the humans)