any advice for moving cats to a new home?

[Freedom]

I moved from an apartment to my house about 2 miles away.

We closed and spent about a month working on the house prior to moving in. During that time, I brought each cat over with us (one at a time) and let them roam while we were working. Most stayed for a few hours. (we returned to the apartment for lunch.)

We moved lots of stuff ourselves, and put most everything in the home office ahead of schedule. The morning the movers were coming, I took all the cats over with their "stuff" and they went into the office and stayed there with the door closed. When I finally opened the door about 10 hours later, all the big stuff was in place and they just poked about.

If you move them AFTER, I would say put them in their carriers for the day. When I lived int he apartment, I can't tell you how many people moved out and couldn't find the cat(s) when they were done and ready to leave! As things clear out, they find the oddest, tiniest places to squeeze in to get away from all the commotion!

Best wishes!

[catmandu]

I moved the Found Cats all three of them into the house first. Then I locked them in the front room with the food and litter boxes.
It was funny watching them as they wanted to run away , but were frozen as they didnt know in which way to run. Mr Scrappy was frozen in indecision.

[Medusa]

The house I currently live in is only approximately 5 miles away from my old house. Leave it to me to do things totally different from all the other posts I've read. I did it half way through. There was chaos at the old house and new because my son was helping the movers at the old house and I was at the new house. I kept the fur posse isolated in a back room of the old house until it was time to transport them to the new one. And I didn't take them all together, just a couple for each trip, which meant 4 trips. When I got them to the new house, I put them in the basement w/all of their food, water, beds, toys and litterboxes. They were pretty stressed so they stayed down there for 3 days on their own! I thought my RB Peeka was never going to come upstairs. She stayed on the top step of the basement for another 3 days and refused to come up all the way. I guess she got lonely and once she saw the enclosed patio w/all that sun, she made that her permanent spot except at bed time, of course. Sniff. Now I miss my little Peekie. Anyhow, the fur posse liked the basement so much that they stay there each night now. Worked out great, gives me my space and they have their own apartment, the little stinkers.

[Hellojosie]

Our cats have "their" room at our current (old?) home already, so I figured we would move the one big piece of furniture (a futon) out of there tonight, and then move the rest of their toys, food, water, etc all into that room. That way tomorrow morning before the movers come we can close them in that room with a sign on the door- "Do NOT open!!". That way we won't have to worry about anyone escaping (and Ollie is quite the escape artist- little stinker even knows how to open an unlocked sliding screen door) and we'll be able to find them later in the day no problem when we come back for them. I hope this works and they don't get too stressed out! They already know something is up, we've been packing & moving small things & boxes over all week.