Have you ever walked into a house and smelt the cat or in many cases, the cats? Cat odor is bad, but there are worse smells.
A while back, while I was still involved with a home party company, I went out to give a presentation. I’ll never forget the hostess opening the door and just about being knocked off my feet as the stench of animals wafted out the door. I briefly thought – NO WAY, I can’t handle this! The hostess had worked so hard collecting pre-show orders and was so excited that I took a deep breath of night air, pasted on my show face and went inside.
After navigating a narrow hallway stacked to the ceiling with boxes, glancing into a kitchen where you couldn’t see a space on the counter top or table and lifting my clothing rack over the sofa, I finally found a small space of floor to set up my display.
I found one source of the horrible odor when I looked behind the sofa. A wall to wall to ceiling ferret cage dominated the room. I think there were 4 ferrets in total. That wasn’t all. There were multiple cats too. Kittens bounced on the sofa and a very large, furry cat resided on the back of a chair. By now my eyes are watering, not from allergies, but from the smell.
It was the shortest presentation in history. When I arrived back home, I unwrapped my clothing rack and left it in the garage. It resided there for a week or so while the pet odor dissipated.
Since then and until I finished my home party career, I asked about pets in the home when I booked the parties.
That experience made me very sensitive to pet odor in my own home and the response of guests to those odors. We have 2 cats and a dog. My girlfriend, Kim Plumley, was over a few weeks back. Kim is not fond of animals in the house. It was great to hear her confirm that we have zero pet odor in our home!
