Cataluma

Some time ago, we built a 'guesthouse' for the cat outside. It was a simple structure, designed to provide a refuge from accidentally-introduced dogs, bad weather, and the like.

Effectively, our house cat had become not quite an outdoorscat, but a scrounger at the borderlands. His temperament changed too. It was as if you'd plucked a person from his comfy village hut and given him an apartment of his own in some urban setting. It sounds odd, but that's how it seemed.

Our cat took to howling at odd times, especially at 3 am. A cat's howl isn't like a dog's howl. It's what people have come to call a 'caterwaul' because that's close to what it sounds like, a cyclic bawl, wail, howl, moan sort of thing.

You could then rap on the wall, talk to the cat for a while, and he'd stop.