No A/C--How Do You Cope?

Is anyone else suffering from the heat out there?

I live in the Midwest, and the A/C unit I ordered was late in arriving because of the holiday. I put a large spray bottle in the refrigerator, and when it was cool I misted the airspace above the cats. Rocky enjoyed it. Angel stayed put until her long black fur was silver with water drops, then she got up and sashayed off. Ruby thought the spray was a punishment--she yowled and ran and hid.

I put ice cubes in the Drinkwell fountain, and they ate mostly canned food this weekend. I have fans running in two windows at the opposite ends of the second floor, but you know all that's doing is blowing hot air inside. Sunday night I put each cat into a plastic dishpan, and slowly poured cool (NOT cold) water over the towel I covered them with. Even Ruby tolerated that one.

Just got the word that the A/C unit is due to arrive on Tuesday. I got a funny feeling when I left for work this morning--it was hot already!--so I am leaving work at noon today. The heat index is supposed to be 107 this afternoon, and I am NOT coming home to three cats dead from heatstroke. We are headed into the basement for the afternoon. I will have to sweep and clean up a bit down there first, but it'll do today until the sun goes down.

I know everybody out there doesn't have A/C. How do you cope, especially when you have cats?

I leave plenty of cool water out for my kitties.

I leave the door open to the bathroom so they can lounge in the coolest room of the house all day.

Grooming is done three times a week....and if there is a heatwave...EVERY day....and they're both short hair.

I leave out only dry food for them to snack on during the day and meat at night when the temperature is cooler and less likely for it to go off.

Have fans on.

Encourage air flow through the entire house, particularly where we spend most of our time.


I live on the edge of a desert so for 90% of the year, the temperature is hot.

I just read your post. Thank you!

We lived in a "attic" tiny apartment in Washington DC.. It was like over 100 degrees. We had broken AC so we used the three fans around in the apart. IT were still HOT.. Till the other ac arrived in a week or so.. I never had any experiences to leave cats there when it's heatwave becasue that time we didn't have cats.

I dont know.. but goingdown to the basement is a great idea. Basement keeps it cool off. sorry about that.

Its been in the 90's the last few days here in my little corner of Nova Scotia- and I've been living at the lake and the beach. Its so hot, the kids are swimming in the ocean, which is usually too cold to stand, no matter how hot the day. I'm planning a nice evening walk on the beach 5 mins from my house, there should be a bit of a breeze. I live in a waterfront home, but its been hot anyways. We don't have air conditioning, but have a big fan we sit by...

So much for living in igloos here in Canuckville

Half fill soda bottles with water and place them in the freezer. Place these in a box that the cats will fit into, one per box. You can also make a bed with them inside for your kitty to snuggle on. These will really cool your kitty down.

A damp cloth in front of the fan will also lower the temp in the room.Keep water dripping in the sink with a washcloth at the bottom. This will give them a cool place to lay down. I hope this helps. Make sure you have turned off everything in the house that does not need to be on. Appliences and lights will only add to the heat.

I hope this helps you out until the A/C comes!

Air conditioning isn't at all common here, and there's no such thing as a window unit. When it's up in the nineties, I open up all the windows in the early morning to let the cooler air in, and then shut them and close the shutters on the south side of the house. We have an oscillating fan, but the cat won't lie in front of it, preferring to stretch out on either the tile or parquet floors. The cellar is almost always cool, so I leave the upstairs door open so that he can go down there whenever he wants. I keep some of those "ice packs" in the freezer in case of heat strokes, sice he had one when he was little, on the day I was supposed to pick him up and bring him home. Needless to say, that changed the plans.

I have air conditioning but only turn it on from about 6:00 pm till 9:00 pm. After 9 pm I open the windows overnight and turn ceiling fans on low (I have one in every room). Then in the morning I close all the blinds and windows before I go to work. If it's the weekend or I'm home, I don't close the blinds until around 1:00 in the afternoon. If I do these things, my house stays cooler.

Peaches likes to lay on the coffee table directly under the ceiling fan in the living room.

Great hints! I never trusted the ancient rickety window unit in my apartment, so I would put fans in windows, leave out lots of cool water, leave the bathroom door open so the cats could sleep in the tub (they loved the cool porcelain), and lay out several slightly damp towels for them to lay on & keep cool. I love the ideas about ice packs - never thought of that!

Well, the portable A/C finally arrived, and I am underwhelmed, to say the least. It has provided a cool spot upstairs, which, frankly, is all I was hoping for. This is a single family brick house, on the second floor, and you know heat rises, so this portable unit is in for the fight of its mechanical life. This is a friend's house, and the windows up here are very small--I don't think they make A/Cs that small. My suggestion of having the windows enlarged to put a decent A/C unit in did not go over too well, even with me offering to pay for it. Anyway, after I plugged this thing in Rocky and Ruby decided to lay down in front of it. Angel was afraid of it, for some reason--might have been the new smell, or the noise it made. I had to go get her and put her down in front of it. She would not stay put, so I left her alone after the first two times. She went down in the stairwell and huddled up against the door. It was cooler down there, so I let her stay there.

Thank God there's a cold front with thunderstorms and rain coming tonight. I am also calling around town to investigate first time home buyer's programs here in St. Louis--I'm tired of renting with nothing to show for it.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my post. I have used ALL your ideas at some point during the past three days.

omg i would DIE without my window air conditioner.. My house has a central air type thing too but it costs a lot to run so we have a bunch of window ones around the house. For a while I stayed somewhere w/o ac and we always had a fan in the window at least one in the room and one in the doorway and it brought SOME comfort.. The other day I drove past a house that had 3 box fans on top of each other in the front doorway with the door wide open, lol, I felt bad for them..

rubyangel I'm glad u got yours,this is a hot summer..

Living in Los Angeles, it's getting pretty warm, but I don't have AC, either. Luckily, our heat is a fairly dry heat, and so my kitties and I are pretty compfy, with the blinds drawn, and the ceiling fan on. Now, in the car, it's a different story. Last year I had a car with no AC, and it was unbarable to go anywhere until the sun went down. I got a new car in January with AC, and it's heaven.

Hi guys!

I went out and got another, more powerful fan to stir the air around, and that seems to have done the trick. I was seriously considering sending this portable A/C back, but Annabelle, you're right, it's better than nothing. Those folks had 3 box fans in the doorway??? Good grief, I feel better already!

HopeHacker, I didn't know the air in LA was dry. That's what gets me about St. Louis--it's so darn humid here. I went out to Las Vegas a couple of years ago, and I loved it--98 degrees in the shade at 9 in the morning, but it's a dry heat, like LA. I was so comfortable I roamed up and down the strip. My friends had to warn me about sunstroke!