Better Late than Never; A Tale of the Wildly Lazy and Apathetic

I have lived in my apartment since February of 2004, and in all that time my bedroom door hasn't latched properly. I never even really noticed it, in fact, until I got the cats and tried to sleep without them digging into me with their kitten claws in the middle of the night. I closed the door, got into bed, and they pushed it open, waltzed in, and commenced filleting.

Did I do anything about the door? No. I gave it a cursory glance, noted astutely that something wasn't right, and then endured the cats' claws because I knew it would pass.

I didn't think about the door again until recently, when one of the cats developed a bladder infection--suddenly there were little bursts of cat pee everywhere, and I really didn't want cat pee on our beds. I closed the door to The Boy's room, no problem, but mine . . . what to do?


The cat on the left is the pee cat, but I am hopeful he won't be for much longer.

The Boy solved part of the problem by hooking a bungee around the doorknob and attaching it to the closet, so it couldn't swing into the room and open. Ha! Humans 1; Kitties 0. But how to keep the door closed from the inside? Why, put something heavy in front of it, of course!

This worked well enough until about 3am the other night, when Thing 1 and Thing 2 decided that they really needed to get into my room, and so proceeded to throw themselves at the door, like two small bettering rams. The noise was quite something, especially in the still of the night, and I lay in bed fearing that my stronghold might not be so strong. At last, desperate to keep my bedroom a pee-free zone, I took my comforter and pillow and slept on the floor in front of the door. I knew there was no way there were going to be able to kick me out of the way, and either I was tired enough to get used to the noise and sleep, or they gave up. Humans 2; Kitties 0. I lasted there on the floor until about 5:30, and then slid gratefully into bed for another 30 minutes.

To say the situation was untenable is kind of an understatement. What did I do? It finally occurred to me to grab a screwdriver and try taking the little plate off the door frame to see if it was preventing the latching. Guess what? It was. The door now latches firmly, and the cats won't be able to get in unless they learn how to turn the knob. I added the extra touch of closing a polar fleece sock into the door jamb, and now there's no room to rattle. Humans 3; Kitties 0.

I am now sleeping in peace, knowing that no creature without opposable thumbs can enter my bedroom without my consent and assistance. And it only took about four years.