Two different hazards share this question, and they do not deserve equal weight. A reclining chair can injure a kitten caught beneath its mechanism, and the brief discipline below covers it. The washing machine and tumble dryer, though, are where kittens are killed in ordinary homes, because a drum is a dark, enclosed, often warm sleeping cave that a person can load, close and switch on in under a minute. Build the body of your household system around the laundry.
Recliners, Briefly and Properly
Before sitting in a reclining chair or raising its footrest, glance underneath and behind it, confirm where the kitten is, and move the mechanism slowly, stopping at any resistance or sound. Keep that check as a standing habit and teach it to children in plain words. Then give the rest of your attention to the appliances, where a glance is not a habit but a life-saving procedure that has to happen in a fixed order, every load, without exception.
Look Inside Before Loading, Closing or Starting
Make the rule absolute and sequence it: open the door, look inside the drum — properly, with your eyes in the drum, not a glance from standing height — and only then load, close and start. Kittens sleep deep and still, burrow under a forgotten item left in the drum, and stay silent when the door opens, so the check must be visual and deliberate rather than a shake and an assumption. Run the same look before closing the door after a finished cycle, before starting a dryer cycle on a load you did not load yourself, and whenever the machine has stood open for any length of time. If you cannot account for the kitten's whereabouts, she is treated as possibly in the drum until found: stop, search the house first, and start nothing. A load delayed by a search costs minutes; the alternative does not bear shortcuts.
Doors Shut and the Warm-Dryer Attraction
Between uses, both appliance doors stay shut, always, so entering a drum is never an available option. The dryer needs extra respect: a drum that has just finished a cycle is warm, dark and lined with soft, heated laundry, which is close to a kitten's idea of a perfect bed, and a kitten who climbs in then can be trapped when the next person closes the door and presses start out of routine. Keep the laundry room or cupboard door itself closed where the layout allows, adding a second barrier between kitten and machines. Empty finished loads promptly rather than leaving warm laundry sitting in an open drum, and check the drum once more as you empty it, because kittens also climb in during unloading while your back is turned.
Laundry Piles, Baskets and Household Habits
The drum check covers the machine; the piles around it need their own discipline. Shake out bedding, towels and laundry piles before they go into the machine, since a sleeping kitten can be scooped up inside a duvet cover, and look inside the laundry basket before tipping it in. Sort loads with the kitten shut out of the laundry area where you can, and never leave a loaded, open machine unattended 'for a moment' — that moment is when doors get closed by someone else. Put the rule in writing for the whole household and any house-sitter: look inside before loading, before closing, before starting; doors shut between uses; if the kitten is missing, nothing starts. Stick a bold reminder above both appliances, photograph the agreed wording into KinsLe, and file it under Family Sharing for flatmates, partners and anyone house-sitting.