A month ago, two of my roommates brought home a Maine Coon from the shelter. Before we all signed the lease, we agreed it was OK to have pets in the apartment, but it was still an out-of-the-blue decision/last minute communication on getting the cat.
The cat is super sweet and litter-trained, but she's SO clingy. It's gotten more rampant lately. Sometimes she'll be OK doing her thing, but most of the time she needs constant stimulation/attention. She's almost never home alone because there are four of us and one of my roommates (aka her primary owner) doesn't work, which means he has all day to play with her.
Examples of clingy-ness: she primarily sleeps with my two roommates, but in the early hours of the morning she'll wander out to my bedroom door and meow/whine to get in, where it'll wake me up. She'll sit outside the bathroom if one of us is showering, and will claw at doors when we're needing privacy (fortunately she is de-clawed). She'll leave the room and yowl a few seconds later, like maybe she's expecting us to follow her? It seems like separation-anxiety, but I'm no expert.
Latest example: her primary owner had a video call and needed the bedroom. Everyone else is available, all her toys are out, yet she comes upstairs and yowls outside his door. I kept my door open and tried to play with her via string (she loves it), pet her, play some YouTube cat videos, but still she'd go back and cry outside his door. I don't like encouraging bad behavior, so I tried to clap loudly whenever her meowing got out of hand, and it temporarily helped.
Idk...I'm not used to living with pets, but everyone agrees she's very needy. It probably doesn't help that none of us are familiar with cats, my roommates are first-time cat owners. I try to Google what I can, but I think the problem is my one roommate (the main owner/one who spends the most time with her) enables the behavior/doesn't know how to discipline her, which only continues the cycle.
I've tried linking tips in our group chat, or casually asking if they'd want to get her one of those cat-towers, but one of my roommates said they "don't want to waste the extra space on her". According to the shelter, she also doesn't get along with other cats, so I doubt another cat would help.
I'm kind of at a loss for what to do, especially since she's not even my cat. But I'm worried her clinginess will get worse and it'll make living situations harder.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/qqkhtj/how_to_deal_with_my_roommates_clingyvocal_cat/
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