Many times when you cannot find your cat in the house, but you know that they are there, you end up finding them somewhere way up high, like the top of the kitchen cabinets.
Right now, I have my Yamaha keyboard propped up on it's side, and my Bengal is sitting on it. Fortunately, it is wedged between things so that it will not fall.
I actually didn't discover this until recently but apparently my 3 year old cat's favorite hiding spot is in my closet on top of totes that I have in there behind my clothes. Unless I'd gone in there and moved my clothes that are hanging up aside, I never would have seen her! Now I know why so many of my black pants that I hang up come off the hangers with cat fur all over them when I thought they were well out of reach of her!
My tabby Dolores likes to go in the closet where I keep the laundry basket and hide in the dirty clothes pile. She also will hide in any lower cabinet if I happen to forget and leave it slightly ajar. In the past, I have turned the whole place upside down looking for her, only to find her lying on top of the dirty laundry or in the cabinet where I keep pots and pans.
I don't have a cat, but my sister does. They've lost her a couple of times in the linen closet. She'll get in behind a stack of towels and they won't see her when they shut the door.
Her favorite hiding place is under the treadmill, though. They cannot figure out how she squeezes under it because it's low to the ground. She isn't a small cat. Yet, sometimes they will go in the room and they'll see two eyes poking out from underneath it.
I currently do not have a cat, but when I did she found so many different hiding places; it was usually pretty hard to find her.
Her favorite place to hide was in the closet under all of the blankets.
When she wasn't there we could usually find her under one of the beds, behind the couch, in a basket or sunbathing in the windowsill. There was a few times when we wanted to leave for vacation and she was hiding in the closet and we looked and could not find her. She always did a good job at blending in with all of the blankets.
My cat's favorite place to hide is under the bed near the headboard. She used to hide whenever anyone new came by and would continue to hide from that person until she got used to them. She's getting older and has arthritis. I guess it's not worth the pain and trouble any more. She just ignores them.
My youngest cat, Lily, likes to hide in my closet on top of my shoe rack, and sleep on my shoes. The first time she did this she scared me silly. Now I'm used to it, but it drives me nuts because I'm always finding her fur all over my shoes. We also sometimes hear her crying in the hall closet where she'll get stuck inside when someone leaves it open a smidge and another will go by and close it. She'll sneak in when its open and hide on top of the towels or blankets in there. I get scared she'll do this when we'll be out for a few hours. So far we've been lucky she hasn't.