How many cats is too many cats? I can’t tell you exactly, but a couple of weeks ago, I had 11 cats living in my terrace house. And I can say with confidence this is absolutely, definitely too many.
At time of writing, I still have seven.
Somehow, my home has, against my will and better judgment, become something of a cat rescue centre, and an illustration of what Cats Protection has described as a growing crisis of abandoned felines.
This all started last summer, when I convinced my husband, Michael, that we needed a kitten as company for our grumpy old ginger boy Phillip, which would bring our number of cats to the completely normal and socially acceptable number of two.
We contacted a local rescue centre, and they in turn convinced us we didn’t need one kitten, we needed two. Taking two, they said, would mean they would entertain each other; it would be less work for us. The fact that they were overrun with kittens they needed to rehome was, I’m sure, merely coincidental.
So, Joanne and Susan (combined with Phillip – they’re named after the Human League) came to live with us; their mother had been found heavily pregnant a few weeks before, by some bins in an alley, and taken to the rescue centre. And we were more than content with our Feline League.
Until one day in September when a neighbour, Viv, came knocking on our back door. She’d found some kittens in the back alley and didn’t know what to do. (Presumably she thought Michael and I would be best placed to help with excess cats, as we already had more cats than anyone else in the street.)
We live in Levenshulme, in Manchester, where terrace houses back on to alleyways. We’ve always had the odd stray, and our neighbours look out for them, leaving out food and beds. But in recent months, the problem had grown from the odd stray into something of a cat colony. Viv had gone to take out the blanket from a carrier to wash it and found three five-day-old black kittens inside.
I thought I knew exactly what to do in this situation. I rang a cat rescue charity, who would just come and collect them. Except every single one I tried was full. I rang the RSPCA; because the cats weren’t sick or injured, it wasn’t in their remit. My options, it transpired, were “leave them there or take them in”.
It could only ever be the latter. We named the three babies (then of unknown sex) Leslie, Stevie and Toni and also took in the mother, calling her Phillipa, after Phillip. This seemed like a great idea when the plan was to rehome her, but we’ve decided to keep her, and even though she now goes by Pippa, we must appear to have a distinct lack of imagination.
We had a steady stream of neighbours drop round with cat food, treats and even cash (to help cover Leslie’s vet bills, as she was found with a bad eye infection).
I’d got in touch with Cats Protection, who had, over the course of several weeks, trapped, neutered and returned seven cats who were still living in the alley, and I’d even managed to find homes for three of them. Viv is still hoping to find patient and experienced cat owners for the others.
By the end of October, with the seven alley cats largely dealt with, and the seven cats in our house more or less peacefully coexisting, things felt a bit more settled. We thought that must surely be all that the cat distribution system had in store for us.
Then, just before Halloween, a message popped up on the WhatsApp group for our streets: “Can anyone help with this? We’ve found a mumma cat and four kittens.”
The 12-week-old black-and-white kittens were running around in the alley and into the road; we spoke to the owner of the mother, who said she was “trying to get rid of them” and agreed to surrender the kittens to us.
And so we found ourselves walking home with our second litter of kittens in as many months, bringing the total number of cats in our house up to 11.
I’d been fine with three, fine with seven, but with 11 in the house my eyes were itching, my nose started running and I was rooting through the bathroom cabinet for the antihistamines.
Our house is a two-bedroom terrace, with an open plan downstairs, which is lovely for letting the light flow through but less ideal for storing multiple litters of kittens.
As we have a cat flap on the back door for our existing cats, who have come to be known as the “downstairs cats”, we needed to keep all of the new unvaccinated and unneutered arrivals upstairs and behind closed doors.
Michael had already moved his computer from his office to the dining table to accommodate the first litter, but with our only spare room already full of cats, we had no option but to keep the second set of kittens in our bathroom.
After experiencing the least peaceful bath of my life the day after they arrived, I did not attempt a second one until they’d gone. Luckily, the second litter were old enough to be rehomed straight away, and three days later we had our bathroom back and I could breathe through my nose again.
Pippa’s kittens will be old enough to go to their new homes soon, and we’ll be down to the almost reasonable number of four cats. But we fear it may be only a matter of time until the next resident litter.
With the cost of living increasing, fewer people are paying to neuter their pets. Figures from Cats Protection’s annual study of cat ownership and welfare found that neutering numbers had fallen to 82%, down from 85% in 2024 and 88% in 2020.
Younger cat owners are also less likely to have neutered their pet, with 71% of cats owned by those aged 18 to 34 neutered, compared with 95% of those belonging to people aged over 55.
“In the last 12 months, around 5,100 stray cats came into the care of Cats Protection, representing around 18% of all cats taken in by the charity,” said SuiLi Weight, a senior community operations outreach manager for the organisation. “However, centres and branches across the UK regularly reach capacity, meaning it’s vital to prevent cats from becoming strays in the first place.”
“We’re seeing a worrying rise in the number of stray and abandoned cats, which is putting huge pressure on animal rescues across the country,” Alice Potter, cat welfare expert at the RSPCA, added.
“Our centres are full, and we currently have more than 300 cats being cared for in private boarding facilities. The soaring cost of living and fewer cats being neutered are clearly having an impact.
“Many owners are struggling with vet costs or delaying neutering, which has led to more unwanted litters. Cats can breed from as young as four months old, and a single female can have up to 18 kittens a year – so numbers can quickly spiral.”
And don’t we know it. “Are you sure you’ll be fine with having three?” I asked a neighbour, as she came to pick up two of the second litter. She’d already taken in one of the neutered alley cats. “Sure,” she replied, “what’s three when you’ve already got one?”
Unfortunately, this kind of dangerous thinking is exactly how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place. What’s three when you already have one? What’s seven when you already have three? And what is 11 when you already have seven?
