For many years I have had rescue cats but around 10 years ago I decided I would like to help more. Living in rented flats though, for most of my life, made it difficult to help more cats, so I set up a plan to save enough money over several years to be able to afford a mortgage. Around 8 years later I just managed to achieve this, moving into a small house in a London suburb, a house that I was able to do-up over time and to convert it into a cat sanctuary that it is now.

One of the works involved  in doing-up the house was converting the garage into a stray/feral room with holding pens. With family, and a friend, we converted the garage.

With a donation from a couple of other friends, I was able to get two custom made cat holding pens designed and installed into the new rescue room.  This room is the hub of the work I do. It not only houses the short term cats that come in, but it also houses supplies such as food, litter and most importantly cat traps and transfer baskets.

For the cats in the rescue room, after a short stay, which often involves trying to socialise them, to help them become more trusting, they then either move onto a new home via a rescue, or if they are completely feral they may be put back from where they come from providing they have a feeder/guardian and shelter, or if they require relocating then a farm/stables will often be their new home.

Amongst many other works that needed doing to the house was removing all the old broken garden fences and replacing with new ones then having Protectapet come and install their product around the top of the fencing to keep my resident cats from getting out of the garden. I have also considered it vital that cats stay safe. By this time I had already gathered 8 cats as permanent residents. 

Several months later, 8 cats turned into 10 permanent residents. Several of these cats have long-term problems such as reoccurring calicivirus, heart conditions and FIV. Several of the cats were born feral and were trapped by myself when they were kittens.  All the cats are ex-stray and ex-feral cats, except for Jazzman, the senior boy, at almost 16 years old. He was being given away on a free-site as an unwanted kitten in 2008. 

With several permanent older cats and ones with long-term health problems, the vet bills are very costly and that is without still having to pay off various loans, a 26 year mortgage and 5 year finance on a small van that I purchased to help me in my cat rescue work.
The high costs of all this is why this website was set up so that people are able to support my work and the cats in my care. Within the past year and a half 7 of the resident cats have had to have dentals and tooth extractions due to gingivitis most likely due to being infected by calicivirus when they were kittens. Dentals are not cheap. 

As well as the recent dental costs, my oldest cat Toffee at 16 years old passed away several months ago after a long illness which turned into other serious illnesses. We were able to keep her well enough and happy for a year and a half after her diagnosis of heart failure and then kidney disease.  Over a year and a half her vet bills/medication came to almost £13,000 which included several trips to a specialist referral vet.  This is the care that the cats at my forever sanctuary will recieve.

Unfortunately cat rescue does not pay enough to do it full time so I have a  job away from cat rescue work.  The money earned from my job goes into the care of the cats here, paying all the bills, loans and also into the cat rescue work I do with the strays and ferals.