Re: Bleach and cats
I've been learning from cats for 55 years - started when I was minus 5 - and I'm confident there was a good reason for the cat going ballistic. Am also confident there was a way to get it through this awful episode, but I don't condemn those present for being mystified.
Arasina and Calpernia have learned something I learned just a year ago, when I caught my two (loving but) emotional cats trying to mash themselves into a bleach spill on the concrete. I only know that the fumes make me very ill, so I can imagine how it would affect a small animal. Some chemical in bleach (simple as chlorine?) definitely arouses the cats' systems; their eyes will dilate, and you definitely want to approach them gently, if at all. Just shut them up in whatever you can get them to (with a broom? I shake plastic bags to shoo them) for an hour or so, and they will be back to normal.
One other possibility is that the cat was like the one in "Ghost," which saw an evil spirit. Okay, laugh at me, but they can do that. I think. So. Kick me outa here...
So arasina was right? Bleach does affect cats!
I bet that is what the cat in this story got into when it went to the basement.
I also have a great heads up for when I bleach the kitchen Friday.
Bump and thanks!