Cat fur everywhere – How to remove it

I don’t know what the internet has told you but if years of cat ownership have taught me anything it’s that cats shed constantly. There is fur everywhere, all of the time, it’s part of your life now and most of the battle is accepting that. But if you’re here it’s likely the fur is ‘too much’, so what can you do about it?

1. Minimise the fur

This pretty much involves brushing your cat as often as possible up to once a day. The more loose fur you can remove from your cat, the less fur there is to end up on your clothes, on your carpet and in your computer. You need a FURminator but keep this brush for once a week grooming. It will get right to the undercoat and sort of trims as it goes which is why you need to take it easy, but it will get the worst of the fur out of your cat. It is very, very effective. Next you’ll need a general use brush just to grab the daily shed. Personally I like the LAIKA brush, it’s small and gentle enough to get the detail spots like legs and heads but still grabs a lot of fur. Plus the cats LOVE having their faces brushed with this. Try it and see.

2. Remove your existing fur collection

If you’ve had a cats a while fur is going to be in every corner of your house and embedded into every piece of fabric you own. This creates a never ending cascade of fur and your house never feels truly clean. To tackle this, we need a fur focused crisis clean.

1. Clean behind everything. Grab a Rubber Broom and a decent long duster (this one is excellent for just about everything). I kept wondering why the floor was ALWAYS covered in cat fur and seemed to be sweeping up constantly just to keep on top of it. Things didn’t improve until I found the secret stash of cat-fur-tumbleweeds hiding behind the radiator. Fur would gather there and just tumble out when people walked past. You need to find these fur hotspots in your house. Check around stairs, behind furniture and anywhere the cat sleeps or plays. Get the worst of it up and make notes on where you find large deposits of fur. Clean those first and the fur won’t spread to the rest of the house.
2. De-fur textiles and clothes. Fur transfers so it’s important to get it off of fabrics before it can spread. Ideally remove the fur before your clothes go in the laundry, this will save your machine too. Use a lint roller or rubber gloves on clothing and a rubber brush, gloves or sponge on the sofas and other fabrics. A vacuum designed for pet fur with an upholstery attachment can help here too. There’s no easy answer to this one, just do what you can to get the worst of it.
3. Defur the carpets. You will be amazed at how much pet fur gets itself into a carpet. It can work it’s way in and hide, evading vacuums, barely visible to the naked eye. If your carpet looks a little flat and dull this is likely your problem. One of these metal debobbler lint roller things is the best solution but may snag carpets so go careful. They’re actually great on clothes too but again be careful as they can snag.

3. Maintain

If you work the above into your regular schedule you’ll notice a gradual reduction in fur spread but there are a few tips that will make life a little easier on the cat fur front.

If you have hard floors use rugs in hotspots to help catch fur and/or sweep daily with an electrostatic dry sweeper or microfiber cloth. If you have carpets lint roller the hotspots regularly to prevent spread.

With clothing and textiles – consider throwing out anything that attracts and holds a lot of fur. The less of these items you have the less you’ll need to clean. If you wish to recycle, these items make great cleaning cloths since they naturally grab a lot of fur!

A tumble dryer presents a few more options for defurring. I don’t have one but it’s possible to use the dryer to grab the fur off your clothing. No defurring product works effectively in the washing machine so don’t bother with them unless you have a dryer to hand.