Photo by Georgios M. W.
I wrote about the problem of selling a house with pets, not realizing the chaos that would ensue once our house was market ready.
Our agent is doing exactly what we want: marketing our house, which includes placing it in the MLS and on the web with pictures of the inside along with a virtual tour.
Well, let me tell you, both the pictures and the virtual tour turned out fantastic, but we had to jump through some major hurdles to get those results.
I’m not talking about the decluttering and staging process. I thought that would be among my biggest challenges to getting our house to show well. (I am a bit of a pat rack.) Ha! That was cake.
The trouble began when the photographer arrived.
It’s my fault. I’m always taking Murphy, Tabby, and Mr. Meow’s pictures and telling them how adorable they are. It was only natural for them to be confused that a camera was being used but not on them. So they did what any publicity hound (or cat) would do –they barged their way in front of the camera.
Well, obviously that couldn’t be allowed. I figured I could corral them one room at a time, i.e. wherever the photographer was not. But something else came up that I needed to deal with and when I went to go do it, Murphy followed but the cats did not. Wayne didn’t want to monitor them both, so he tossed the more high energy of the two, Tabby, into the laundry room.
When I came back, I heard her making a fuss so I opened the door without asking why it was closed and let loose the demons: Wayne and the agent started screeching at me not to let her out, Tabby bolted for cover under the nearest table, and the photographer just shook his head exasperated. This is when Mr. Meow decided it would be a good time for him to act up by jumping on the kitchen counters.
I grabbed him while Wayne tried to wrangle Tabby back into her temporary holding pen. When he got hold of her, she howled the whole way. Then when I tried to give her company by way of Mr. Meow (hey, they are getting along better now), his temper flared. He dug his back claws into my arm, hissed at Tabby (which was actually good because it prevented her from dashing out again), and then struggled in my arms until I could stow him in the powder room.
It was the longest half an hour of my life –and maybe of Kitty and Tabby’s too.
But, even though the cats can’t believe this since they weren’t in any of them, it was worth it because those pictures turned out great.