🐈‍⬛ Feral Cats 🐈‍⬛

Hi Friend,

The other day when Abbey and I almost ran over a stray cat in our parking garage. It darted across the floor, skidaddled underneath a parked car, and stared us down.

Then while I was walking my dog, Tobi, he hopped up on both legs like a kangaroo when he saw another cat casually make it's way to the parking garage.

Didn't think anything of it. These cats don't bother me. If anything, they're probably keeping rats from chillin' in our building. Right?

But then this landed in my inbox today: Feeding Feral Cats in Parking Garage

I immediately LOL'd and clicked it open to read the attachment from our building management.

Turns out some kind folk have been leaving out bowls of cat food in our parking garage.

But it also turns out that this can:

• cause rats to show up and eat the food too (I was wrong)
• cause the cats to poop and pee around and on your cars
• increase our our building maintenance fee
• make the place stinky
• add to noise pollution (garage acoustics + cat meows = louder meows)
• give the cats a new mating zone and add an unwanted increase in the feral cat population 🐈 🐈‍⬛ 🐈 🐈‍⬛ 🐈 🐈‍⬛ 🐈 🐈‍⬛
• and cause the elderly to fall while getting into their cars from their ankles being clawed at.

Ok I made that last one up. But still it could happen.

You see, this all started with an act of kindness.... but the ripple effects can lead to people driving into work with smelly, cat pissed tires, only to have their hard earned money go towards maintenance fees that pay respectable staff to clean up cat aftermath.

This is similar to weak boundaries wreaking havoc on your life (and other peoples) without you knowing the true extent of the damage.

You say "yes" to something because feels kind (and much easier than saying "no") and suddenly you and your partner are annoyed with each other because you're always [insert: working/tired/busy/anxious/mad].

You can't help everyone and not everyone is going to help you. So don't spend more of yourself than you're able to give just because it feels like the right thing to do. The ripple effects might actually end up doing more harm than you ever intended or even know about.

I don't think our apartment building was one feeding away from being a cat orphanage, but I appreciate or building management addressing this while I've only seen two cats.

So think about it... who are the feral cats that you're feeding in your life?

✌🏾TTYL!✌🏾

Simie

P.S. If you're struggling to set boundaries in your own life, check out The Well-Being Program where you can have the opportunity to be coached 1:1 by me, Simie, who happens to be reeeeally good at saying "no" and getting others to do the same. It's the right thing to do–for you and everyone else.

P.P.S. Those feral cats and everyone that you say no to, will be ok. They only go where they know it's easy to be fed!