I love animals, and am not categorized as a “cat person” or a “dog person” — I enjoy both, though I am a “big dog person” and not at all fond of the little yappers that people carry into stores in oversized purses. Still, to each her own.

My cat moved into this house before I did, as there was a significant mouse problem. The cat food went mostly untouched for a month or so, the cat gained weight and muscle, and the mice just disappeared — no poison or traps required.

Today though, I’m wondering if I wouldn’t rather have mice.

All winter it’s seemed like the house was much colder than usual, though I attributed that for a time to keeping the thermostat turned lower than I have in the past. Still, it didn’t seem like the utility bills were as much lower as I would have expected for the discomfort. Next, I thought it was probably because a lot of the insulation in the crawl space has fallen down, and that’s probably part of the problem. Especially in the kitchen (only half of the house has a crawl space; the rest is a basement).

It seemed suspicious though, when I went to the basement for firewood and realized it’s warmer down there (underground — typically the same temp year-round) than upstairs. I went around to all the vent connections in the basement and repaired one that was loose, but the problem persisted.

Yesterday, Hubby caught the youngest cat (a young adult, but still kitten-sized, as she was the runt of an unwanted litter) crawling out of one of the heating vents. This morning, Alpha saw her do it again. Exasperated with the energy loss (and fearful of the cat doing something stinky in the ductwork) I set about looking for the hole, and found it.

She — or they — had torn a hole about two feet across and nine inches wide, along the top of the main duct from the furnace.

So, as the child of an engineer, the wife, sister, sister-in-law, niece and cousin of engineers, I grabbed the duct tape. I can fix this. For the record, we’re more likely to have duct tape in the house than bread, milk or paper towels — so that isn’t a problem. The fact that I’ve used duct tape for 1,001 things except it’s intended purpose was not a deterrent.

I also happen to know that there’s a big box of duct material in the basement, from a long-forgotten project that Hubby intended to complete about 15 years ago… at this point, I don’t think he’d miss a couple of small pieces. Armed with a ladder, duct tape, duct material and my trusty pocketknife, I patched the massive hole (as the HVAC system blew dust and fiberglass all over me).

It’s not pretty, but it’s sealed.  Next, I need to cut a couple of pieces of plywood (yes, we have some of that too) to block off the route the kitties use to get from the top of the stairs to the top of the ductwork… otherwise, the little monster will just tear another hole in it.

I’m not a big fan of having cats de-clawed, but have to wonder if it might be a necessity with this one.  One of the others has a habit of kneading his paws on Hubby while he’s sleeping — sometimes with claws — so I’ve trained that one to sit still for a “manicure” so I can trim his claws to a short, painless length.

Not sure if our ductwork culprit (her name is Creamsicle, but we call her “Itty-bitty” more than anything else) will sit still for that.

Most people start off January with self-improvement; I’m taking on “home improvement.”