There is a cat (not ours!) in the crawl space under the house. We can hear it meow, but we can't get it to come out. The only exit is through the garage, which we usually keep closed. It must have run in one day when we were walking the dog. The cat has been there for several days, with no food or water, meowing plaintively. How do we get it out before it dies? Any suggestions?

You have a few options:

Get a live animal trap from a vet, the humane society, or if all else fails the hardware store. Bait it with some cat food (part of a can of tuna will work), and then remove it and release the cat.

Call the humane society or animal control to come out and get the cat. They'll know what to do and how to do it.

Leave the door open to outside and let the cat find its own way out.

Whichever of these you choose, put out a bowl of water in the crawlspace immediately... I'm sure the cat needs it by now.

Just wait. Before long, it will need to come out. When it gets used to society and the environment around it, it will be brave enough to come out. I recently had a small kitten under my house and all I did was wait. It soon cane out. One of my nieces let her out though, so she now is under our house again... but once again, I'll just wait.

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Originally Posted by Nosnosna

You have a few options:

Get a live animal trap from a vet, the humane society, or if all else fails the hardware store. Bait it with some cat food (part of a can of tuna will work), and then remove it and release the cat.

Call the humane society or animal control to come out and get the cat. They'll know what to do and how to do it.

Leave the door open to outside and let the cat find its own way out.

Whichever of these you choose, put out a bowl of water in the crawlspace immediately... I'm sure the cat needs it by now.

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Sometimes, that doesn't always work. If it's a cat, then it might work, but for a kitten, I don't think so.

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Originally Posted by hheerrss

Just wait. Before long, it will need to come out. When it gets used to society and the enviroment around it, it will be brave enough to come out. I recently had a small kitten under my house and all I did was wait. It soon cane out. One of my nieces let her out though, so she now is under our house again.....but once again, I'll just wait.

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That can be dangerous. If it's scared enough, the cat will starve to death before coming out.

Hopefully, at sometime in the past 32 months, the cat came out.

o_O should have checked the date

That is true, Sariss. Good point. But then again, all you have to do is put a little food out so at night, when no one is around, it will come out and eat.

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Originally Posted by hheerrss

That is true, Sariss. Good point. But then again, all you have to do is put a little food out so at night, when no one is around, it will come out and eat.

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That is actually a bad idea from the stand point that the food will attract other animals, such as racoons, opossums, stray dogs, rats, foxes, etc. In other words, you don't know what you are feeding and it probably won't be the animal that want to.

Okkkkk... you got me. That's a reasonable explanation.