“I live by the Long Island Rail Road tracks,” where mice like to play, said Stoike, 73. When winter arrives, they like to head to his house to escape the cold.
Stoike’s solution: Always have at least one “working cat” — a feral cat that has been spayed or neutered, but isn’t a good candidate to be a pet because it hasn’t been socialized to live with humans and, perhaps, has lived outdoors for most of its life. Unlike a pet or house cat that would live indoors, use a litter box and even snuggle with its owner on a couch, most working cats are fine with their outdoor life and prefer it that way. They hang around and take care of mice for homeowners.
“I tell the neighbors how important they are,” Stoike said. “They don’t need any poison or mouse traps in the house.”
The standard of care for feral cats is known as trap-neuter-return (TNR), which entails humanely trapping the cat, sterilizing it, and returning it to where it was found. But sometimes the cats can’t be returned to where they lived before, either because their caretaker is no longer there to provide food and water, or because their environment has been made cat-unfriendly. They need a place to go.
Animal rescue groups have created working-cat programs wherein homeowners or store owners agree to provide the cats with shelter, food, water and medical care — promising to take care of it like any other pet — in exchange for an added line of defense against vermin.
“Even though there’s absolutely no guarantee they will get any and all rodents, it often works out that way. The cat gets a home and the business or owner gets reduced or no rodents,” said Jesse Oldham, a community cat expert for the Animal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), headquartered in New York City. “We’ve also seen a lot of people also just like cats. It’s nice having them around, even if they’re not particularly social.”
Working cats in businesses have become a familiar concept. Bodega cats, for example, have attained internet cult status and large Instagram followings. The cats of Disneyland have their own Instagram account too (hopefully taking care of mice but not that mouse). But working cats, which in more rural settings have long been known as barn cats, can have a place in residential areas as well. Stoike has a garage where he keeps his working cat. A basement or shed will also suffice.
“It’s treated as a real adoption,” said Kathleen O’Malley, director of education for the NYC Feral Cat Initiative, which is part of the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals. “We’re not just giving away feral cats to people who may not feed them.”
O’Malley estimated that between their program, other animal welfare groups and private veterinarians, about 1,000 feral cats are found and processed every month in New York City. The cats are spayed or neutered, given a rabies vaccine, and their ears are tipped — a tiny sliver of the top of the cat’s ear is removed, using anesthesia, by making a straight cut with a scalpel — a signal that the cat has already been altered. Most often, the cats are then returned to their environment and left to roam their territory.
Sometimes, though, that home has disappeared. Maybe it was a vacant lot that is being developed, or an abandoned building that has been demolished.
“Relocation of cats is an absolute last resort, but if there’s a neighbor conflict or if there’s a real estate issue, we try to either fix it so the cats can stay or move them across the street or down the block,” O’Malley said. “That being said, it’s New York City. Sometimes a cat’s territory will no longer exist in a few months because their empty lot is going to be built on every inch, and there’s no place down the street where they can be moved.”
Adopting a working cat isn’t as simple as caging a feral cat and moving it to your home (as if that itself would be easy). The cats need to be given time to know that your space is their new home.
“Cats are pretty territorial. They know where their shelter and food sources are,” Oldham said. Re-acclimating a cat means keeping it in a “very large kennel with shelter, food, water and litter so they know their source of shelter and food has changed,” she said.
O’Malley recommended feeding the cat with wet food, scooping litter twice a day, and talking to the cat so it can get used to its new caretaker. The acclimation often takes about four weeks. “It’s labor intensive in the beginning, but it’s crucial to get the cat used to the new territory and to give them reasons to want to stay,” she said.
The true test of whether a cat is fully acclimated is if it sticks around, but O’Malley said there are signs that it might be ready: it is eating heartily, interacting calmly with the adopter through its cage “or simply staying calmly out in the open when humans are near the cage.”
How the relationship proceeds after acclimation depends on the cat. “If the cat’s trust in the person grows over time, then the cat may be open to things like petting and coming indoors,” she said. “But even if the cat remains completely feral and afraid of coming too close or being touched by a person, there’s still a relationship with the person who feeds and shelters him.”
Stoike’s new working cat is a calico named Lola who was “brought off the street by a well-meaning but misguided individual who then left it behind in her apartment when she moved out,” said O’Malley, who paired Stoike with Lola. “This poor cat would be basically living on the street and sidewalk and concrete front yard of neighbors in Queens.”
Stoike is already the caretaker for a feral cat colony near his property, so adding a working cat in his garage wasn’t that big a deal. He does consider working cats like any other pet. He feeds them, talks to them and allows them in his garage, where he puts a heating pad in winter. Sometimes they leave “gifts” of mice on his doorstep.
“When they pass away,” he said, “it’s like a family member almost.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.