how to stop cat from eating wool socks and sweaters

Our cat is addicted to eating wool, especially socks. He'll sneak open drawers and then eat them entirely. This is becoming a big problem since we're running out of winter socks. Not to mention the socks my grandmother made for me when I was a child! What can we do to stop this?
Thanks

Your kitty needs a vet and a blood workup it sounds like he has Pica- and there are several websites dedicated to this puzzling disorder. Those who I have heard from whose cats have this usually find out it is either an anemia problem or food related-

In the meantime, it might be worth getting a plastic bin that latches shut so the kitty can't get to the socks. You might test them to see if spraying bitter apple on them might deter the kitty (test on something you don't like much first, in case it stains).

Thank you for the advice. After he first started eating the socks, we made sure to close our drawers but he's quite sneaky - he seems to be able to paw them open a crack and then fish out the socks he's looking for. It sounds like a good idea to spray the wool socks but then again I'm not sure if I want my socks to smell weird.

I had the same bizarre problem many years ago. My girl Siamese wanted to eat anything wool! I had to keep anything wool behind latched doors so to speak. I never heard of another cat doing this - didn't know it could be a medical condition!

My Siamese Susie was the same. I had a friend stay overnight once and she ate the elbow out of a brand new wool sweater that my friend put over the back of a chair. Fortunately my friend had a good sense of humour and suggested the cat had good taste since it was a very expensive sweater.

Also fortunately, she didn't get sick from eating it. In fact in 14 years she had one UTI and that's the extent of medication for her. I was very lucky that she was so healthy.