Italian Adventures – We Bought a House in Italy!

SOoooooo, not being a cat owner I experienced the wonders of a cat in heat this spring (2025). For at least a full week, there were more cats at my house than I could ever imagine and some of the most horrific sounds I think I have ever heard. Being a photographer, I naturally had to capture some of it in pictures.

Bella bean (my nickname for her) was being her usual self, trying to hang out inside the house and begging for treats. She ventured upstairs and I found her like this…

But once all of the ‘activity’ started happening, she stayed outside and courted all of the neighborhood male cats. Meanwhile, Fifona just hung around, keeping her distance, taking catnaps all around the garden.

Thankfully all of this finally ended and things got back to normal. Except I soon realized that poor Fifona was pregnant. Her ‘activity’ clearly happened weeks earlier and somewhere else, but her tummy was getting big and she was eating a lot more frequently.

Bella spent the next few weeks sleeping a lot, everywhere she could find, including inside the house. She Loves Prosecco’s bed! Prosecco is my daughter’s dog. I brought my extra bed for him to Italy in case he ever gets to make the journey. (the little white guy below)

In May 2025, there were a few weeks where I never saw Fifona so I was hoping that meant she had her babies and not hurt somewhere. Then suddenly one day, I walked outside and there she was at the cat bowl. But she was MUCH smaller, meaning she gave birth. As she left, I followed her up the road to see if I could find where she had her babies but no such luck. I never saw her babies so I don’t know if they lived and how many there were. Sad.

At the end of May it was time to fly home to Seattle. I sadly would not know what would happen with Bella and her babies. I filled the 5-day cat feeder and left a bucket of food inside the house in case the workmen would be kind enough to feed her. They were still working on finishing the rooms on the new floor, or at least they were supposed to be, but that’s for another post.

My favorite man, Giovanni, fills not only the cat bowl but also the 5-day feeder whenever he is at the house to do work. He is the man who installs my screens, windows and doors. He is so kind and patient.

Fast forward over the summer. I was flying out of Seattle on August 24, 2025, arriving in Italy the afternoon of the 25th. I always have the cleaning ladies come and open up the house the morning I am set to arrive. They do a wonderful job of airing out and cleaning the house, making it a pleasant experience upon arrival. All I have to do is go grocery shopping and settle in. Lovely!

On the 25th, the cleaning ladies found a tiny kitten in the office, a kitten that couldn’t be more than 4 or 5 days old. How did the kitten get inside? The workmen never close the doors to make it easier for them to come in and out of the house. Bella loves when the workers are there and immediately comes inside to find a comfortable place to sleep. She will frequently go in and out of the house while the doors are open, so I am guessing that she brought the kitten inside and ended up getting shut out of the house when the workers left. I don’t know how long the baby was inside the house but it couldn’t have been more than a day or so. Thank goodness this all happened just before I arrived so the kitten didn’t die.

The cleaners and Federica, my project manager & friend, put Prosecco’s dog bed outside in the sun and laid the kitten inside. Within minutes, Bella was there to protect her baby.

I wanted to help keep the kitten safe so I let them sleep inside the house for a few nights. There was also a storm coming and I wanted to help protect them.

I was conscientious about letting Bella outside to go to the bathroom but it never really seemed like she was out there long enough to do her business. Well…I was right!

I don’t remember if it was the morning of the 2nd or 3rd day of the cats sleeping inside the house, but it doesn’t really matter. Spoiler Alert, this might be TMI so read on at your own discretion. I did my normal morning routine, went to the bathroom, hopped in the shower, got dressed, then came back down to dry my hair. I kept smelling a poo smell and thought to myself that I must have eaten something awful last night. Even with the windows open, the poo smell lingered so I wondered if something was wrong with the toilet and flushed it again. I went into the bathroom across the hall and it too had a poo smell so I flushed that toilet.

I dried my hair and just couldn’t get the poo smell out of my nose so I went back into the other bathroom and discovered that Bella had been using the bathrub as her litter box. There were 3 older piles and one really fresh pile of poop. UGH! Thankfully cats are really smart and she pooped in the tub rather than on a rub or on the furniture.

I grabbed a garbage bag, cleaned out all of the poop, and washed the tub accordingly. Time to run to the store and get an actual litter box!

As the storms passed and the weather turned nicer, I wanted to wean Bella and baby out of the house and back into the garden area. Bella didn’t like it but hey, she is a cat and the baby is getting bigger. By now I have named the kitten Baby, since it was still too young to know if it was male or female.

Here’s where it gets funny, unless you are me.

Bella was determined to be inside the house so everytime any of the doors opened, she would sprint inside. Eventually Baby started following her. I learned last year that I could use the cat treats to coax Bella outside and then close the doors, but this wouldn’t work with Baby. You had to quietly sneak up on her when she was sleeping to then scoop her up and bring her out to Bella. But when Baby was awake, she was FAST and small so she would scoot under the couch or furniture so you couldn’t get to her. Also keep in mind that they housed up in my office, on the sofa, and my office was stuffed full with all of the dressers and other furniture for the new floor once it was finished. Again, another post to come. Baby had SO many places to hide and take cover. I can’t tell you how many attempts it took for me to sneak up on her/him over the course of an evening.

Meanwhile, I think you can start to see where Baby’s eye is crusted closed. I asked my friend Heather, an avid cat owner, what she thought. She said that is is really common for kittens to get eye infections and suggested that I go to the vet or pharmacy to try and get some medicine. HA HA HA, I am in Italy!

I started by trying to wash Baby’s eye daily with a warm, wet washcloth and put some regular eyedrops into her eye. While that helped, it was not solving the problem. So I eventually went to the local Farmacia and…this is where I am proud of myself… 100% in Italian I explained that my husband was having an issue with his eye, it might be allergies or it might be a small infection, and asked if they had anything stronger than the over the counter eyedrops. The pharmacist nodded, walked over to a shelf behind the counter and showed me a box. PERFECT! Like my friend Terry, you might ask why I made up story about my husband rather than just saying it was my cat. Look, I don’t know how these things work in Italy yet so it was the best I could do and it got me what I needed!

Twice a day I would ‘capture’ Baby, wash her eye and put the drops in. You could start to see the improvement within a few days. However, she was getting bigger and faster each day and would take off running everytime she saw me coming. This meant I had to become more stealthy and try to get her while she was nursing or sleeping. This felt rude but I needed to do what I needed to do. They just don’t understand you are trying to help them. OOF!

The workmen are back, finishing up the new floor, constantly leaving the doors open. Naturally Bella and Baby would make themselves at home while they could. One morning I came back from running errands and found Bella and Baby in the living room. There was a strange thing upright covering part of Baby when I realized that she had been under the sofa and got stuck on a mousetrap that was set last Fall. I quickly scooped Baby up and went outside to get help from Giovanni. He quickly got out his box cutter and cut Baby free of the sticky trap. I was heading inside to wash her and he told me to use Olive Oil, as it cuts through the sticky like nothing else. Again, I was so proud of myself because none of the workers speak English and yet I understood everything he told me.

Below is the sticky trap that Baby got stuck on while under the living room couch, followed by the mouse I caught in October 2024 (for effect).

I immediately took Baby into the kitchen, started coating her in oil when Bella jetted in, jumped up on the fireplace ledge, put her paws up on the counter, VERY concerned about what I was doing. Needless to say, I cleaned Baby up, got most of the gooey mess off of her fur, washed her with some soap, dried her off, and took her and Bella outside to do their thing. Bella immediately started to clean and protect Baby. She is SUCH a good mamma.

Bella was strangely obsessed with my office, always trying to get inside. Several times I caught her even trying to get inside from the outside. It made me wonder if she had had her babies inside my office but that couldn’t be possible, there would be a nasty mess and an even worse smell. And yet, her eagerness to get into that room persisted. So strange.

It was really fun for me to watch Baby grow throughout the Fall and see how loving Bella is to her baby. I don’t know how to upload videos but here are a number of photos to give you the picture.

I felt comfortable leaving them this Fall knowing that I have created, and they discovered, several protective spaces for them throughout the winter.

Bella saw Fifona inside the cat house I purchased and set up last year and eventually took the space over for her and Baby. She also discovered the elevated cat house I installed near the back of the house as yet another shelter.

Baby also found shelter inside the boiler room and I would frequently find her lieing on the coffee bean sacks, the leftover straw, and even the cat pillow I have in the cat house during the summer. The hinges to the boiler room are broken so the door doesn’t shut completely so Baby frequently finds shelter in there when she is scared or wanting to sleep undisturbed.