SEE IT: California home builder spends more than $50K turning home into cat paradise
Peter Cohen has spectacularly transformed his Goleta house with a series of high walkways, tunnels, ramps and perches so that all of beloved felines feel entirely at home.
He started converting the building shortly after buying it in 1988.
It had come with two outdoor feral cats, but one was soon knocked down and tragically killed by a car.The second one, called Cookie, was then also hit by a vehicle — and underwent extensive reconstructive surgery to survive.
Cohen decided that, for safety, she would be a house cat and set about making the inside of his building a more interesting place for her to live.
He also then went to the shelter to adopt her some new friends, so that she wouldn't be lonely. "It sort of went from there," he told the Houzz home design website.
Now, he shares his house with two roommates and 15 cats. The pets are adopted from shelters across California — and have 22 litter boxes in which to do their business.
But Cohen claims that he doesn't even notice the smell as the kitty toilets are all located in closets with ventilation fans.
And he has five autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners "which are on almost every day" to pick up the cats' hair.Some observers have jokingly suggested Cohen is slightly mad for splashing so much cash on his pets. The walkways alone cost more than $50,000.
But he said he "didn't care."
"Way more expensive than a sane person would build, [BUT]I love my cats, my house and art, so I designed it to be beautiful to me," he added.HouzzTV posted a video detailing his astonishing home to YouTube in December. It gained serious online traction this week, and has now been seen almost 500,000 times.