If you live in an apartment, just don’t get one
Reasoning edit: pets, especially cats, will leave a smell all over furniture. Cleaning becomes an even worse chore due to the fur. They also require “house training” in order to not chew/claw/destroy most stuff that’s lying around the house.
Cats are healthier and live longer when kept indoors.
Local wildlife are healthier and live longer when cats are kept indoors, too.
There’s no evidence that domestic cats put pressure on local wildlife. Most domesticated cats live near urban and suburban humans and can keep household rodent populations down. They also have no impact on urban birds like pigeons, sparrows or crows.
Well you’re very wrong.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/faq-outdoor-cats-and-their-effects-on-birds/
"In the United States alone, there are 60 million to 100 million free-ranging, unowned cats. These are non-native predators that, even using conservative estimates, kill 1.3–4 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals each year in the U.S. alone (Loss et al. 2013, Nature Communications). As a conservation organization, the Cornell Lab recognizes that this is an unnatural situation that is taking a tremendous toll on the native wildlife of our continent. "
“We also suggest that at its core, keeping cats indoors is a pro-cat stance, because it avoids the well-documented problems of predation, violence, car collisions, and disease that afflict all outdoor cats and shorten their lives.”
https://abcbirds.org/solutions/keep-cats-indoors/
If by domestic, you mean cats that live indoors, agreed. Otherwise there’s an extensive amount of evidence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
That Wikipedia article contains incorrect info if it applies to habitats outside of Australia or isolated islands. The math doesn’t add up for the vast majority of domesticated cat habitats. Once away from humans, cats have plenty of predators in the wild that would check their population against bird destruction. Also note that some birds prey on cats in the wild.
Many urban and suburban places in Australia have precious native bird life. They do have a measurable impact on the native population.