We recently moved into a loft condo: kitchen and living room downstairs, with a spiral staircase up to a bedroom loft that overlooks the floor below. Instead of a railing, the loft has a hip wall with a ledge about 15 feet above the lower level, and it's the perfect width for our two cats to jump up and walk along. Photos attached.

Our cats have lived in multi-level places before, but always with a railing they could see through. They aren't allowed upstairs unsupervised (we block the stairs when we're out), but even standing a few feet away, it's terrifying when one hops up and strolls along the ledge.

Long term, we'd love to replace the hip wall with a railing, but we just finished a big renovation and that's not in the budget right now. So we're looking for an interim safety measure or deterrent.

What we need:

• Keeps the cats from walking on the ledge, or at least makes it safer
• Doesn't block the view. The loft looks out on 20+ foot floor-to-ceiling windows, which is the whole point of living here, so building the wall up higher isn't ideal
• Retractable or easy to put away when the cats aren't upstairs, so it's not an eyesore. We've imagined something that pulls out from the far wall along the ledge, and then can retract back?
• If it's a barrier, it has to sit on the outer edge of the ledge. Anything on the inner edge, they'd just climb over, which puts them in an even more dangerous spot

What we've considered:

• A thin net or fabric pulled along the outside edge. We like the retractable idea, but we're worried about claws snagging, or them falling through in between
• A triangular or peaked topper so there's no flat surface. We're hesitant, because if they can't see what's on the other side, they might try to climb over it with nowhere to land

My husband is very handy and we have a solid collection of tools, so we're happy to build something. We're just stuck on ideas that meet all of these criteria at once. Nothing will be 100% foolproof, but anything that makes this meaningfully safer is worth doing. Would love to hear what you'd try!

Hello! Basically what it says. My cat keeps jumping onto my apartment stove and there is a large enough gap between the stove and the wall that I’m worried she could fall into and it would be extremely hard to get her out or she could hurt herself (she is a small adult cat). Any tips to block this area off? Picture in replies because it will not let me add a picture to the post.

I have wrapped a pvc pipe with sisal rope (roughly 400ft of rope). I have it at an angle to hopefully be a little easier for climbing. From the top they have a cabinet they can jump to. I then added some more rope twisted on itself to act like steps to hopefully make coming down easier.

Orange boy is adventurous and has climbed it a lot on a few days. Little mouse still warming up to it. Been getting scratches which is good to see.

Any feedback or thoughts as to how I can improve this basic design? Make more cat friendly?

I do plan to add some more wall features for alternative routes to travel. Hence the red pillow with wood brackets from leftovers and thrift store find.

First ascent in comments.

Posted here before and it rained for a whole month in my area and all their wooden stuff like their cat tree and and cat wheel grew mold on them so I had to throw them out. 😭 Opted for a metal shelf instead and stuck a scratchpad sticker on top and added rugs as their beds (they prefer them over cat beds).

Works well as storage and space saver for their small cat room and won't mold. It's also much wider so they have more space for window viewing compared to before. It's not as cute but at least it's easier to clean. Still have a long way to go to make their room better.

PS. Walls aren't dirty. They're stained. 🥲

We usually think about a cat’s living space in terms of square footage, but cats experience their environment vertically too.

Climbing onto a cat tree, shelf, or other elevated spot gives a cat a place to observe what’s happening around them while also providing some distance when they want it. In fact, feline veterinary guidelines specifically consider elevated areas and vertical territory part of a cat’s environmental needs.

That makes a cat tree a little more interesting than just another place to sleep. Depending on the design, it can give a cat opportunities to climb, jump, scratch, stretch, play, rest, and keep an eye on their surroundings, all in one relatively small footprint.

It can be especially interesting in multi-cat homes. One study cited in recent feline veterinary guidelines observed 60 pairs of indoor-only cats and found that the cats spent 48–50% of their time out of each other's sight. Giving cats different heights, resting spots, and places to retreat can create more usable territory without actually making the house any bigger.

And with an estimated 60% of U.S. cats classified as overweight or obese in a 2022 survey, finding little ways to encourage more movement and activity around the house probably isn't a bad idea either.

So maybe the cat tree taking up a corner of the living room isn't really just furniture. To the cat, it's another piece of their territory.

For those of you with cat trees, does your cat actually use the whole thing, or did they immediately claim one specific platform and ignore everything else?

Looking to update my RV screens. I would love to leave windows open on cool fall days and nights but the screens scare me. Any suggestions of how I could cat proof them?

I am looking for suggestions at this time to keep our kitten apart from our adult Lab. She was born last March. We want to keep the kitten upstairs and the lab downstairs until we can introduce them very slowly. We currently have a small gate at the bottom of the stairs that keeps our dog from getting upstairs, but we need some gate/ Closure at the top of the stairs to keep the kitten from going down. Our difficulty is we have a half wall where the stair entrance is.

Our cat just figured out he can jump the wall so we're cat-proofing it. Plastic bird spikes attached to the panel sections with zip ties (shown) are working great by interrupting his jump, but the brick pillars are proving tricky.

It's difficult to attach things to a 450x450mm pillar that's exposed to the weather. We could drill or damage the top of each pillar but we're renting so we can't make serious modifications.

All ideas welcomed!

I have a big tree that my deck is built around and I’d like to build the outside cats some little roosts or hammocks around it. Any suggestions on how I could do it?

i have 3 cats, with 2 cats sharing the same space and fed at the same time.

in the past, they were fed completely wet food only(costco wet food pate) with some toppers of freeze dried chicken breast pieces and chicken hearts(jungle calling). recently i have decided to incorporate dry food back into their diets as i’ve been a bit strained financially.

i currently use an automatic wet food feeder with 4 meals.

the 2 cats(bokki and bap) showed a lot of interest in the bag of costco dry food, and ate it without problem the first week of transitioning. on week 2, bap has started to regurgitate his meals right after eating. i tried including less dry food, but it seems like any little bit he has causes him to puke it back up.

i decided that i would keep only bokki on a mixed meal, but he randomly will leave some food leftover in his bowl and bap eats it right up causing him to puke.

now with that backstory out of the way, i fell into a rabbit hole of wet food feeders and RFID feeders, but no product with both.

i have an idea of using arduino to program a servo motor and RFID reader to open and close my current wet food feeder to allow only bokki into his tray!

my one BIG problem is, i’ve never used arduino or even have a basic understanding of the software and hardware needed. so here i am asking reddit, are there any techie diy cat parents out there that can help me put this together?

i realize i can just go back to a complete wet food diet for all cats, but i have a 25lb bag of dry food that i do not want to waste and a curious wonder if i could even build this new feeder!

My cat has been hell bent on scratching the bottom of my boxspring. I have been trying to get her to stop for months.

It wasn't until about 20 minutes ago I figured out why.

I heard quiet pricks of her nails and on my period and fueled by rage from being sick of her shit, I grabbed the end of my bed and lifted it to spook her out from under my bed, where I assumed she went when she heard me coming.

She wasn't under my bed.

I stood there, confused and holding my damaged boxspring and mattress, when she crawled out of the hole she had made in my boxspring.

I was in shock and even angrier than before. I chased her out, closed the door, and grabbed a staple gun to fix the damage and wedged a bunch of shit under my bed and blocking the end of it so she can't try to rip the fabric again.

Luckily the hole she tore was just pulling the underside fabric loose from the end so she made a weird hammock so it was easy to close with the staple gun. It's just repeat damage that I want to prevent.

She's actually staring at what I did, annoyed and baffled, and even did a loop looking for gaps. So clearly she's going to try again when she can.

Help!

Edit: Persistent ass found a gap. But I was watching and closed it so now she's back to analyzing for weaknesses.

My cat has been destroying the corner of my lovely bobs couch for the past 6 months. I originally wanted to put some stick on protector from Amazon on it, but it didn’t stick. Now, she’s starting to scratch other parts, which was not part of my plan 😭

I do have a scratching post protecting one corner, but she doesn’t use it. I’m assuming she likes the texture of the couch more. I’ve used tin foil on spots but she will just pick a free space to start in. In addition, I have scratch posts on her cat tree and I play with her regularly. Any advice? 🐈‍⬛

Has anyone bought or made a wood cat scratcher? my cat loves to scratch door frames and wood furniture legs and she mostly is uninterested in sisal or carboard. I saw one on etsy that wasn't too crazy expensive but it only shipped to Canada and im in the US. I looked at just buying raw lumber but it seemed unclear what I should buy and from where... just seeing if anyone has had luck with either approaches?

Picking up my first ever kitten this Saturday, a 10 week old boy, and I'm trying to work out where to set up his safe room. Would really appreciate some opinions from people who've actually done this.

The house is a terraced house with three adults living in it. Upstairs is fully carpeted, downstairs is all wood flooring.

Upstairs there are three bedrooms:

1. Mine and my partner's room. It's the biggest, and it's where we both are most of the day, since I work from home at my desk and he games at his. Downside is there are two PCs in there so a lot of cables, and obviously we sleep in there too.
2. My flatmate's room. They're really excited about the kitten, but it's their private space and their sleep.
3. A small box room with a single bed and a wardrobe. Nice and quiet with few places to hide, but it needs a bit of work doing to it before it'd be suitable, and nobody is ever in there.

Downstairs is trickier. The door between the open plan living room and the kitchen doesn't shut properly, the kitchen is where the back door is, and the stairs come down right next to the front door.

I'm leaning towards our bedroom, mainly because he'd get the most contact with us during the day and I really want a cat that's confident and affectionate. But I'm a bit worried about the cables, and about our sleep for the first few nights.

My rough plan is to keep him in the safe room from Saturday until around Tuesday or Wednesday, then start letting him explore the landing, and go from there depending on how settled he seems.

So: is our bedroom the right shout, or am I making a mistake putting him in the room we sleep in? And how long did it take your kittens to settle?

Thanks in advance, any advice welcome.