"Kristine Kochanski" wrote:

What about if the cat has kitty companions and someone looking
in on them twice a day?

I would say that's fine (again, only my opinion!) . Having
companions,
feline, canine or otherwise, and some human intervention to check up
on them is fine - leaving a solitary cat alone in a house for 24-48
hours isn't fine. What stimulation do they have? Nothing to chase,
nothing to snuggle up with, nothing to distract them. What a boring
existance that would be :-(

Well, and I think about, what if they swallow a string or get caught
in something and choke? I'll never forget the time Gnarly stuck her
head in one of those small tissue boxes. Yes, it was hilarious, and
as soon as my husband got a load of her stumbling around, I removed
it. If she had done this over a long weekend, she would have been
a wreck at the end of it, and dehydrated too.