Right now we have "day cats" and a "night cat". Three months after bringing my daughter's cat Cooper here to foster, things were going from bad to worse.

I won't rehash the details, but it could be a while until (if) my daughter can take him back again, and since the only other alternative was surrendering him (ugh, what a word!) to a shelter for adoption, we are keeping Coop in "his" room all day.

Our two older females are used to being in "their" room at night. We've been on this new plan since Monday, and already Peach is daring to get out of her hiding place.

We switch them around 6:00 or so, and Cooper has maybe three hours while there are people awake and interacting, then he spends the rest of the night either playing/wandering or (mostly) sleeping with me.

Anybody have any experience with keeping cats in the same house but separate long term? We're thinking it could be 2-3 months, hoping for less, but being realistic. It's not ideal, but we think he's better off in his room all day than he'd be in a cage at a shelter for who knows how long.

But I'd like to hear from anybody else who's had a similar issue.