MiTwo here again to tell you about my humans’ struggle to find a place to open the Neko Ngeru Cat Adoption Café. The photo is not of me, though. Their foster cat
, Tonraq, does look a bit like me, such a handsome boy!

 It sure does seem that humans spend a lot of effort on making comfortable shelters. Now, don’t get me wrong, we cats appreciate these cozy, safe environments, otherwise why would we have lived with you for so long? But, it does seem to take a lot of your time which you could spend on us, just say
ing.

Take, for example, Ken and Richelle’s quest for premises. They started looking for places as soon as they came to Wellington in August 2016. While they were looking for a place to rent, they always had an eye out for commercial property and were thinking of prospective café sites. There was a beautiful site on Jackson St, but it had been a bank and would cost too much to change into a café.

In November, they started to look at a former restaurant on Bunny St by the Queengate Mall. The place looked dirty and run down, but they went inside in December and saw some potential. Then, all of Wellington took a holiday and it was not until January that they could get designers to come in and start the process of dreaming up a great interior for cats to eat, sleep and play in. Part of the dream was to repair and replace the boarded-up windows all along the alley side of the building. It would have filled the place with light, but the owner was not interested in helping to pay for much of these improvements so that idea had to be abandoned.

In March, they were still negotiating with this landlord. The design team presented a budget for the interior that was way over the limits. This was crushing to my humans. But, they went over the plans again with the imaginative and experienced architect and thought of ways to reduce the costs somewhat all the while keeping the quality of life that all cats deserve. They decided to soldier on and had a meeting with the Lower Hutt City Council to talk about food and building safety. That was positive but there was just a question about grease traps that the land lord hadn’t brought up to standard despite strong suggestions.  Then, after a visit to the site with Trade Waste representatives from the Lower Hutt City Council, who are all super nice and helpful, Ken and Richelle realized that they would have cash flow problems if they invested too much into making the space ready. Back to square one!

Now, they are looking at a place in Petone. It is right for them to be picky since this will be many cat’s home. They also need to start crowdfunding so their supporters can contribute to making our cat adoption cafe as comfortable and fun as possible. Because, really, that’s what all this hassle has been about, hasn’t it?