Who’s really under your roof?

As recruitment consultants, we’re always finding ourselves vetting and finding out more about our candidates and clients in order to find the best possible match. Why should finding a new flatmate be any different? It’s definitely important to find out who’s living under your roof before letting them move in, and this is a lesson I learnt myself recently.

I have new this flatmate. His name is George.

When George first moved in, he seemed quite shy. He ate most of his food in his bedroom, slept an awful lot and didn’t want to be sociable at all. And that was fine, everyone’s different, right? It was just mildly concerning that he’d moved into our house, didn’t talk to us, didn’t have a job to speak of, never seemed to leave his bedroom and seemed quite happy to eat all our food.

Well, it’s been nearly two months now. George still hasn’t paid us any rent, nor has he found gainful employment. He has however, become more sociable – demanding, even. When I’m sat on the sofa with my other half, he sits purposefully in-between us, so’s to limit our contact. He gets very chatty and friendly at night, usually just as we’ve decided to go to bed. He’s also the type of guy that will start stealing chips off your plate without asking and will do everything in his power to deny it, even if there’s a chip hanging out of his mouth. The level of social inadequacy is almost embarrassing.

It also hasn’t gone unnoticed that he has a healthy appetite for destruction. Last week, we came home from work to 3 broken ornaments and a broken lamp. When questioned, George ignored us and walked to his bedroom.

It gets worse. Now he’s truly comfortable with us, he’s had no problem with exhibiting his true personality, and frankly, his true personality is creepy. In the last few days he’s started staring at me intently, he follows me into my bedroom without me noticing and will watch me get changed. I can often hear him outside the bathroom door when I’m in there. More bizarrely still, he has taken to lying on his back on the kitchen floor and making odd noises while I try to cook dinner.

The level of entitlement, the sheer selfishness and the complete lack of respect for our home would usually have led to me to request that he leaves our flat. The problem is, I’m a sucker for blue eyes. Well actually, one blue eye and one green eye and masses of white fur and a purr that is louder than a small aircraft. You see, as you may have gathered by now, George is a cat.

We adopted him from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home a month ago, and while it has taken him a while to settle in, he’s just delightful and so worth it. They told us he was shy, but it didn’t take us long to realise that most of his shyness was just due to his situation. George came from a home with a lot of cats and an owner who couldn’t take care of them all. After being taken to Battersea, he became more shy due to the amount of visitors, other cats and general unsettledness.

Now he likes nothing more than to sit with us in the evening, purring away and follows us around the house chirping and squeaking happily at us (his “meow” is a bit unusual.)

So, if you are thinking about getting a cat (do it!), do consider rehoming a rescue cat. They have everything from breeds to moggys, older much loved cats whose owners have passed away, litters of kittens, cats that will happily live with dogs or children, and cats that need a quiet home with a loving owner – The lot! All of them are neutered, microchipped, de-wormed, de-fleaed and with any extra veterinary work done – something we found very useful. And they’re gorgeous, just have a look at all their little faces!

https://www.battersea.org.uk/weblanding?pageId=008-catslanding&t=cat