Photo: Scratching Pad
This isn’t your typical animal shelter.
Steven Liu rented out a duplex apartment in Brooklyn last summer and decided to turn it into an apartment shelter for rescue and foster cats. Oh and by the way, he’s also allergic to cats.
“It started as a series of thoughts connected,” Liu told Catster. “I was looking through YouTube trying to figure out trends, and I made a remark to someone that was a dumb joke. I said, ‘I bet there’s more views per cat-ita than per capita.’
“Then it kinda clicked, like how a lot of people manage celebrities and personalities but no one’s managing cats. So what if someone started an animal management agency where they saved cats at the same time?”
Thus came about the Scratching Pad, the apartment Liu shares with his new furry roommates.
Liu says he hopes to finance the shelter by creating branded content he shares via social media.
“I just want to identify what are the best products for cats,” he told The Billfold. “Like, I live in this crazy cat house. What are the products that are going to make my life easier? I’m going to say to a brand, ‘I like your product, and if you want to sponsor it so that everything I post has more reach, that’ll help you.”
Regardless of being allergic to cats, he has taken multiple felines into his home and even found them permanent families to stay with.
In August, he took in the famous New York subway kittens, as well as two kittens that appeared in the Puppy Bowl‘s kitty halftime show. All of the kittens have since been adopted.
One of Liu’s current feline companions at the Scratching Pad is Barb, a feline that limped up to him on the street. After medical treatment and a few weeks in a cast, Barb recovered and now spends her days stealing computer cords and trying to get as much lap time as possible.
With numerous cats — up to eight recently — the food, litter and veterinarian bills add up, but even though his blog isn’t making money yet, Liu says he has a plan to monetize his venture and save cats in the process.
If you’re not in a position to adopt Barb or one of his other cats, Liu says you can help simply by following the Scratching Pad on Twitter and Instagram, or liking the shelter on Facebook.
“If you want to help me with this mission, the social media engagement is super important,” he said. “I’m not like some aspiring social media guy where it’s, ‘Like my fan page because it’s me!’ I think I have a good enough reason: It helps me save cats.”