Set aside a moment each week, while your cat is settled and the light is decent, to lift each ear flap and look at what is visible inside. Pale skin, little debris and no real smell is the picture you want to see week after week; anything that departs from that — dark grit, redness, discharge, an odour — is a finding to note rather than a mess to scrub away. Most healthy ears need nothing more than this look, and the look itself is the appointment-maker: it tells you early when a gentle clean is appropriate and when the vet's examination should come first.
Compare one ear against the other as you look, because a change on a single side is often the earliest clue that something is brewing. If she resents one ear being touched when the other is fine, stop there: a sore ear hurts, and soreness on its own is a reason to book a vet visit.
Cleaning Only What You Can See
Where a light wipe is all that is needed, moisten a cotton pad with a cat ear cleaner, wrap it around a fingertip, and wipe the folds you can reach without pressing downward. Let her shake afterwards, then wipe away whatever the shake brings up. Work one shallow pass at a time and stop while she is still tolerant, so the routine stays easy to repeat next week.
Never push cotton buds or anything else down the ear canal. The canal bends, debris sits beyond the bend, and probing risks packing material deeper or injuring the ear. If the visible ear looks dirty again within days of a gentle clean, that pattern is information for a vet, not a prompt to clean harder or more often at home.
The Signs That Mean a Vet Should Look
Book the appointment instead of reaching for the pad when you see dark, crumbly debris that looks like coffee grounds, a strong or yeasty smell, redness or swelling, discharge, or scabs around the ear from scratching. Lots of head shaking, tilting the head to one side, or crying when the ear is touched all point the same way. Ear mites, infection and polyps can look similar from outside, and each needs a different response, so the vet's examination — not a stronger home clean — is the step that sorts them.
Note what you found, and when: which ear, what the debris looked like, whether the shaking is new. A week of dated notes turns the appointment from guesswork into a short, focused examination.
Keeping the Weekly Check From Slipping
Ear checks fail by being forgotten, not by being difficult: a fortnight passes, then a month, and the first look happens only once the head shaking starts. Tie the check to a fixed point in the week, give it to one named person rather than the household in general, and record each look so a missed week is visible instead of silent. Put that weekly duty into Care Teams in KinsLe; the person whose turn it is gets notified, and a timestamp against the completed check shows the next helper exactly when the ears were last seen.