I posted this on my month board and someone I suggested I post it over here in hopes of getting more responses...
For reference, this is our living room and the bannister I'm talking about:
Last month, we moved into our new house and we're having issues with our 3year old cat Bella. She is extremely intrigued by the 2nd floor bannister and we don't know what to do. Previously, she had tried to walk
through the bannister rails on the 2nd floor so I bought this clear plastic stuff and attached it to the railings so she couldn't walk through them anymore (it's actually a safety thing they sell for kids but it works for cats too.)
Well that worked all well and good until last night at 2am when she discovered she could jump on TOP of the wood bannister and peer out into the living room and possibly jump onto our ceiling fan. When she jumped up, she hit the plastic and it made this booming noise which is why we woke up. I immediately found her, took her off the bannister, and scolded her.
She did it again at 5am. Again, took her of the bannister and yelled at her this time (which I feel absolutely HORRIBLE about. I seriously almost started crying I felt so bad after I did it.) But I am so worried about her. My nightmare is that I will come home from work and find her either dead or have broken bones from falling.
I honestly don't know what I can do. I've googled it and people have suggested putting sticky tape or something on the bannister but I'm afraid she'll feel it and jump over the bannister instead of jumping back to the second floor. Same thing with squirting her with water (although I don't think this would work in general as she
loves being in the bathroom sink and getting wet.) We've previously tried putting a gate up while we were still unpacking and she jumped over that in about 2.5 seconds.
Has anyone dealt with this before? She seriously is too curious for her own good and I'm open to any ideas.