Hi all, I've been stalking an abandoned cat that gave birth about 3 weeks ago according to her elderly feeder Irene. I've made the trip several times trying to find the litter before kids, or predators etc. find them and last weekend found one decapitated 10 (?) day old under a porch that's for the most part close to impossible to get under....but I did it. It's a huge back porch of a large apartment building, and it's practically a crawl on my knees through cat pee etc. affair, and I searched a few times under it and came out empty handed. Sunday I was back there with a friend and we watched the cat "Gracie" for well over an hour until she finally thought she wasn't being watched, and went off to nurse her kittens. We nearly chocked when Gracie scurried up a tree next to Irene's house, and the Auto Body garage right next door, and she walked across the peaked roof (some 30' up) and disappeared into a rotted out area along the roof edge at the back of the house! There is no attic in Irenes house according to her son who's on the second floor, and it would appear he's right about that as there's no ventilation windows up there. There's an overhang of about 18" coming out from the roof edge, and the house has been sided with aluminum and the hole the cat went in is on that overhang. The gutters are pretty much gone, and the hole is fairly good sized from what we could tell, but no idea just how big an area the kittens could be in even if we were able to get up there and look. We attempted reaching the roof by grabbing a ladder from an adjoining yard, and climbing it to the garage roof next door (flat topped), but then realized not only would it be impossible to pull the ladder up without the extension arms coming loose, but the roof pitch was quite steep too, and I was wearing sneakers with crappy soles, and didn't want to risk falling. There's no way we could climb into the hole even if we got up there without tearing the hole open more. Fire departments don't send people out for cats, a cherry picker wouldn't be able to get a machine back there, unless it was very narrow due to chain link fences all around, and to top it off Irene has no $$ to call a roofer to retrieve the litter and fix the roof. The only idea I can come up with is a sympathetic roofer, or the Animal Rescue League that if they sent someone out chances are they'd take them to the shelter and snuff them all. In a few short weeks not only will the kittens be too heavy for Gracie to carry them down, but they'll also be crawling out onto the roof and likely falling to their death. I have no idea how to proceed from here, and it's the most frustrating place I've ever dealt with in all my years trapping. If any of you come up with any brainstorms about this dilemma...please do share it! ARGHHHH....off to bang my head against the wall....Jan
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