How to Keep Your House Clean and Smelling Good When You Have Pets

Chrysa, my sister-in-law, has two cats. I mean that with all good will since I have a fondness for both her and the animals. Then again, having been to her apartment, you can see where I’m coming from: I have left there in a black coat only to realise once I was out on the street that it was coated in a fine layer of grey fur.

The cats are lovely, but their fur is omnipresent. You will find it on the sofa and the chairs and inexplicably on the kitchen counter even though they shouldn’t be up there. I still think about the time I found some on a guest towel in the bathroom.

But don’t get me wrong, Chrysa is no slob. She is very much an organised person. It is just that when you have two cats, the definition of a clean house shifts in ways those without pets can’t fathom until they put their bottom on the couch.

About six months back she put in a robot vacuum and you would think she had found religion from the way she texts me about it. The thing runs while she is at work so she gets home to floors that are not exactly perfect but worlds better than before. And with a few other adjustments she has made, the smell is gone too (cats and litter boxes have their own ideas on what should be fragrant).

I put this piece together for Chrysa and for anyone else with a cat or dog who wants their house to be clean and smell like a home and not a shelter.