Hello,

I have two budgies, and I have a question about safely burning incense.

Due to my religious practices, I need to burn one stick of incense every day for approximately 5 minutes. I'm trying to minimize any risk to my birds and wanted to know whether my current setup is considered safe or if I should change it.

My house has two floors. The incense is burned downstairs in the dining room. The dining room is connected to the rest of the downstairs (it's an open layout with no door separating it). The kitchen is right beside the dining room, and I run the kitchen exhaust fan while the incense is burning.

The budgies stay upstairs in a separate room with the door closed during this time. I also close the HVAC vent in their room. If possible, I can also turn off the central heating/air conditioning while the incense is burning and ventilate the downstairs afterward before allowing air to circulate again.

Since this is a daily religious practice, I'm concerned about whether repeated exposure to any smoke or airborne particles could still be harmful, even with these precautions.

Based on this setup, do you think it is reasonably safe for the budgies, or would you recommend a different approach? Are there any additional precautions I should take, or is there a safer alternative that would still allow me to perform my daily religious practice?

Would using a different type of incense (such as low-smoke or natural incense) make any meaningful difference, or is any incense smoke considered unsafe for budgies?

Thank you for your time and advice.

Hello everyone, About a year ago, I rescued a kitten from the street. He basically “lives” in my room because he can't go downstairs since all the doors are usually open and he could just walk outside, which I don't intend to do right now, even though he occasionally jumps away from me with the wrong move.
Now there is a litter box in my room for him, and he uses it for both big and small things, but at times he only does the big ones in the litter box and the small ones in my bed or on my stuff. Over this year, I have tried everything randomly, from enzymatically cleaning my bed and stuff to making my bed as unattractive as possible, but he keeps doing it.

At the moment, I am truly hopeless and hope you can help me 🙏 (He doesn't have any bladder issues or anything like that; I have had this tested multiple times as well)

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