This is giving me war flashbacks of both job hunting and being on dating apps, I swear. It’s been months of looking and no sign of the cat distribution system working in my favour.

For background, I’ve got to a good stable place in my career and life. I live alone in London, in a decent-size studio for this city. I rent but have permission from my landlord to have a cat. I have a stable 9-5 job 4 days a week. I don’t go anywhere after work much, maybe travel for about a week a couple times a year. I’ve never owned a cat but I volunteered for years in a cat shelter, helped with everything from bottle feeding babies to caring for injured cats, mostly did social media for the shelter owner and helped with online adoptions.

I also have a pet kingsnake in a very secure solid wood enclosure which has a locked glass door. He’s never gotten out of it. My snake doesn't leave his enclosure except for cleaning and he’s in a ventilated lockbox.

I know I’m not the most ideal, being an indoor-only flat limits my options, but I’ve said in my applications to shelters that I’m looking for older/senior cats, black especially (would help with cat hair since everything I own is black!), open to disabilities, just no medical conditions that need more constant observation, but FIV ok.

Shelter A: After home visit, rejected me outright because of the snake. (The shelter rep loved him, wanted to handle him and even took pictures.) However their committee said no as they were afraid of the cat being hurt. I have other friends with both reptiles and cats who say this isn't an issue. If anything, the snake is gonna get killed by the cat, or he would just run and hide.

Shelter B: Had a phone interview with the foster about a sweet little old lady black cat, which seemed to go really well, and they got me to send over a video walkthrough of my flat which I did right after the call. She said the snake wasn’t a problem. Proceeded to ghost me for 3 weeks, but I kept following up constantly by text. Eventually I emailed the shelter, foster responded a few minutes later by text saying the cat was already adopted (???).

Shelter C: Did video call interview and did a walkthrough of my house. Snake wasn’t an issue here either. Shelter rep kept saying my flat was too small so I could either 1. foster 2. adopt a senior cat/with disabilities. I said no problem to the latter, but I'm not interested in fostering since I have a full time job. I know firsthand settling new cats takes a lot of behavioural work. I'm also looking for my own buddy to bond with long-term without having to say goodbye. She said she'd contact two cats' fosters. Couple days later she texts back saying she couldn't get a hold of the fosters but again pushing me to foster because flat is too small. I said no thanks, I'll keep looking to adopt. Been weeks now, ghosted too.

I also applied to two other shelters but apart from automated confirmation emails from one, haven't heard from them in a month or so.

I'm just so discouraged. I'm a firm believer in adopt don't shop but I see why less stubborn people than me would just give up and buy a kitten somewhere. I'm also looking on most owner adoption sites like pets4homes and gumtree but it's mostly just breeders selling kittens, but this is where I rehomed my snake from too so I'm keeping an eye out. I want an older cat and they’re not usually for sale too. A lot of rescues want adopters with gardens but in London that’s more rare.

I just want a bog standard older black cat!! It's been my dream since I was a child! Why is this so hard??

If you could share any stories of working through the adoption system and finally getting your forever buddy, please do, I really could use some encouragement to keep looking.

Update: got a call back from a small Islington shelter - indoor only rehoming. Phone call went well. Hopefully the cat’s owner will approve of me too. Fingers crossed.

Update 2: rejected again. :(