House of Nekko Is a Rescue Cat's Dream Thanks to Amazing Custom Cat-Friendly Features
Peter Cohen is a devoted cat dad and the owner of House of Nekko, a nonprofit rescue for cats. Cohen's house has been carefully curated into a living space that works for both him and his feline friends—outfitted with catwalks, tunnels, perches, doorways, scratch posts, and more.
"I liken it to living in a cat aquarium—there are always cats around me and above me," Cohen tells Daily Paws.
Courtesy of Peter Cohen
House of Nekko has been fitted with cat-friendly features in ongoing updates over the past 30 years—a process Cohen describes as "catifying" the house. One of his first pieces of inspiration was from the book The Cat's House by Bob Walker, which showed a house full of catwalks. Cohen, a general contractor, decided to recreate the same idea in his own California home.
The catwalks are essentially shelves that function as climbable perches and walking areas for the cats to have a birds-eye view of the house. One of his favorite features is a spiral catwalk that surrounds a floor-to-ceiling scratching post.
"If you put a cat in a room, it will naturally go to the highest point in the room," Cohen says. "Catwalks just allow the cats to live in the space three-dimensionally instead of just on the floor."
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Today Cohen works to adopt and provide homes to as many cats as he can. House of Nekko currently has 24 cats, and Cohen estimates he's rescued around 55 total. Cohen tries specifically to adopt kittens that are less likely to be adopted due to social stigmas, like black cats and kittens with shy personalities.
"People often look at videos of our cats and ask, 'How do your cats all get along? How do you keep your house clean?'" Cohen says. "And the answer is: They don't. And, it's a lot of work."
Cohen's advice to others looking to catify their homes is to make sure that whatever you do is as aesthetically pleasing to you as it is practical and useful for your cat. He also suggests looking for ideas online, investing in pieces that last a long time, and most importantly, having fun outfitting your house with fun features for your cats.
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