Okay first off I need to preface this with a please don't respond with a "well you knew the risk" post......don't need to be told I told you so at this point...just need to vent some anger at the injustice of the system.
About 6 six years ago we bought a block of land to build our dream home on. Now this land title document was over 200 pages with all the crazy nit picky building covenenants etc.....a HUGE document. There were 2 lines in this over 200 page document that said that the estate had been declared by council by law to be a cat free zone......I missed it on reading the contract, my husband missed it, our lawyer didnt pick up on it when he read it and the land developers did not point it out.
So we signed on our dream home etc etc and began building......It was then that we discovered that we were moving into what was apparently a cat free area.....we could not legally pull out of our contract at this stage.......we have or had at the time two cats which I love dearly......I have always had cats, do not remember a time when I did not have a cat around and love them tobits and pieces.
We are also responsible cat owners......our cats are solely indoor animals and are never ouside so do not pose a risk to any supposed native wildife in the area (which we have never clapped eyes on by the way in the whole five years we have been here).
We ummed and ahhed about it all and having no where to rehome the cats to decided to take the risk and bring the cats with us. We did the right thing and registered them at this address and thought we will do the right thing and, well if council picks us up on it we will deal with it. We did not hide the fact we have a cat...our neighbours all know...noone has had a problem.
It has taken them over five years to pick up on their computer system we have a cat (one died of old age just recently). We have been told council has deregistered them and we have X number of days to rehome her or she will be forceably removed and euthanaised.
i am devestated. My cat is a family member and she is also my lifeline. Due to ill health I am unable to work outside the home...she is my constant companion and sometimes the only one I will talk to from one end of the day to the other. I have anxiety attacks...she is able to calm me down without the use of drugs...no one else, not even hubby can do that. Her ability to help calm me has helped me stay of anti depressants for the past few years despite suffering health related depression. This is important to me now I am pregnant as I do not want to be pumping even more drugs into my unborn baby. She has sensed every pregnancy and every loss we have suffered and been there for me snuggling up to my belly instinctively providing comfort.
She is there for me during this pregnancy which has been stressful beyond belief quietly helping to calm me and keep me sane.
Most important of all she is my hypo cat...she can sense (as many animal species can) when my blood sugars are dropping, especially when I am asleep at night, and she will nudge me to wake up and attend to it before they get too bad. This is extremely important to me at the moment with hypos being 10x more prevalent when you are pregnant and needing to avoid any risks to my precious unborn child.
To be quite frank she is a part of me and I don't know how I am going to cope without her...It sucks! It just really sucks!
i think the council regulation sucks especially when we are not as close to the wildlife areas as the exisiting older housing areas around us. there are also many many cat owners in this estate, most of which I would imagine would be unregistered and many who let their cats roam.....we frequently have one of a couple of regular visitors on our deck at night annoying our animals through the glass and frequently have to bring our dog in at 2 am and lock him inside to stop him barking at the cat sitting on the fence tormenting him.
arrghhh......i dunno. I know there is probably no solution but I just think blanket rulings are unfair and unjust and it...well...it just sucks is all!!
I'm gonna miss my baby.
As soon as we have money we will be moving I think....I built this home as a dream home to raise my family in and until Monday that's what it was....now it has all soured.....now it is just a house with four walls and roof and bad juju!
If you read all this thanks....i just needed to get it out......
