NEW GLOUCESTER — Angela Cheetham builds houses.

For cats.

They’re not grand — a plastic tote within a plastic tote, filled with straw and insulated with scrap pieces of foam board, a cutout for a door — but for feral cats around Maine, they’re as good as mansions.

“It gives them a chance to have some quality of life,” she said.

Cheetham, 33, never really thought about feral cats until last fall, when she noticed a string of Facebook posts about cats that had been left outside on their own so long that they were virtually wild and terrified of people. She’d always been an animal lover, and cats had always been her thing. The Facebook pleas got her attention. 

“They didn’t know what to do with feral cats that they’d been taking care of,” Cheetham said. “(The cats) looked like they were cold and they’d tried to lure them in and couldn’t. And they were fearful that if they trapped them and brought them to the shelters, they’d be put to sleep. Which, unfortunately, probably is correct.”

So Cheetham — who fosters a cat and has four cats and one dog of her own — considered her options. She couldn’t trap, neuter and release feral cats like some organized groups could. She didn’t have a barn to house a cat colony. 

But maybe she could help keep a few warm.

“I kind of thought, ‘Well, gee, I’m a stay-at-home mom and I kind of have time on my hands,'” she said. 

Cheetham formed her own Facebook group — Feral Cat Housing Mission, Maine — and began creating reusable, portable cat shelters. Within days, people were requesting her homemade huts through the Facebook page.

A year later, Cheetham has built two dozen shelters using instructions she found online. She gives them away to friends, Facebook contacts and feral cat group volunteers as close as Gray and as far away as Augusta.

The Cat Coalition of Western Maine has used three, including one to help a trio of feral foster cats that broke through a window screen at their foster home and disappeared outside. 

“One feral cat came back. The other two are still out there running around. But at least they’ll know they can go into this and be warm on cold nights,” said Stephanie Mains, president of the cat coalition.

Although her shelters have been popular, Cheetham hopes to improve on the design. She’s enlisted her father into building two wooden prototypes that are raised a couple of feet off the ground. The latest has an escape hatch in case of predators and a front porch for easy jumping in and out.

“I can build stuff, but I’m not much of a visionary,” said Michael Cheetham, 60, of Brunswick. “So she was the visionary.”

Pre-made cat shelters can sell for $100 or more online. Cheetham’s father made his out of scrap wood and other leftover materials. Cheetham makes hers out of 30-gallon and 18-gallon totes, straw and foam board.

Cheetham’s shelters cost about $25 each to make. She often relies on donations. 

Cheetham is starting to gear up for the busy shelter season. Requests start as soon as the cold weather does. 

“Facebook, word of mouth. Usually somebody will say, ‘I don’t know what to do,’ and somebody says, ‘I’ve heard of this program, try to contact them,'” Cheetham said.  

She hopes she’s making a difference.

“Even if it’s only for a few cats. It doesn’t have to be for hundreds,” she said. “Say only 20 of them ever went out and that’s all anybody ever wanted and nobody asked for any more — at least those 20 cats are warm.” 

Have an idea for Animal Tales? Call Lindsay Tice at 689-2854 or email her at ltice@sunjournal.com.

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