If You Rent and Your Cats are Bored, Watch This
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- čas přidán 8. 02. 2023
- Easy DIY cat improvement. If you rent and would like to improve your space for your cats, this is the video for you. Renters have a hard time with "catification" because they can't damage the walls. This video shows how most renters can help their cats even if they have to be careful not to damage the walls.
Link to Walkway video
• DIY Cat Shelf: Walkway...
Living in NYC and going from rental to rental, I gave up on all the "damage free" versions of everything when I learned how easy it is to spackle nail and screw holes. I've painted every rental I lived in, so I have to repaint the walls anyways. For anybody worried about damaging the walls, I have had MUCH worse damage with command strips, double sided tape, etc ripping off massive patches of drywall than I ever had with nails and screws leaving holes so don't be afraid to use those in your rental :) I'm really excited to cat-ify my new apartment and your videos are a massive help
I know! Tape is the worst. And it always leaves a residue, no matter what they say.
In my rental, they won't let us paint or give us matching paint to touch up when we leave. 🙄 So we either have to live in an undecorated box or forfeit our deposit.
@@candimay4404hey my apartment was this way too, I chipped off a bit of paint from an inconspicuous area (small area behind the stove) and got that paint color matched at a hardware store. Alternately, you can take some of the color swatches they have for free and hold them up to your walls, see which is a match. Then get paint in that color
@@candimay4404it’s very easy to paint match if you can bring some of the paint to the hardware store. One of the easiest ways to do this is to bring a painted over outlet if your landlord does that - just unscrew it.
If your outlets aren’t painted, there’s a good chance they painted behind the outlet and then put the outlet over it. Remove the outlet and that’s an easy hidden place to remove a sizable paint chip.
This is definitely one of the secrets to renting. Just get comfortable patching holes and painting and live a little more free.
An alternative to burning the edge of the carpet is to paint the bottom edge with wood glue. A carpeting salesman suggested that to me when I bought a remnant to use as the rug in the living room rug for my first apartment. I painted the edge to about an inch in and let it dry completely before I flipped and positioned it. It worked fine.
Great suggestion! Thanks!
They also make carpet tape. This is traditionally used for patches and seams but you can definitely use it to reinforce edges. Be careful though because it comes in both single and double sided. Some of them are heat activated, requiring an iron, but they give a little bit of time to get the placement right in comparison to the other type. Hope this gives you options to fit your needs. 👍
Happy cats 🐈 🐈⬛ happy home ❤
You know cats well, Dianne!
great ideas, especially anchoring to the bookshelf instead of the wall 🐈⬛
Thanks for the comment S M!
This is awesome! Thanks so much for thinking of everything and sharing with all the cat lovers!
You are welcome! Thanks for the comment, Kahm!
I LOVE CATS SO MUCH!!!! I'm happy that others do, too.
Someone dumped (ughhhhh) a cat in my neighborhood, so a neighbor called me. She's now #7, and so I'm figuring out ways to enrich her life, as she's not interested in integrating into the other cats' space YET. She's in my spare room (I leave her door open all day). She has a window catio, which she loves, but I'm also building her an 8ft high catio that fits right into a tree that she'll be able to access via a tunnel/cat run. I think she will be thrilled with it. I'm halfway done.
I do hope she comes out, and decides to be part of our family, but it is scary, I know (6 other cats, 6 dogs, and an African sulcata tortoise). I visit her all day long to love on her. She's VERY affectionate, but jumps at every little noise (poor baby). She's also a catch and release cat (left ear tipped). She seems quite happy to be here, thankfully (coyotes, bobcats, owls, hawks,mtn lions, etc). I bring her her favorite treats throughout the day (sardine juice, canned catfood, and rare meat).
Thus far, I have 3 full-size catios, and 4 window catios, with more on the way. I'll be connecting them via cat runs, up high. I don't really have anything inside the home, aside from cat towers, so after my outdoor project is completed (not sure I'll ever be done tho, haha), I'll add some goodies inside.
Thank you for what you do !!!!
That is so great that you are willing to take in a cat in need. It sounds like you have a great setup!
@@9LivesToLive I've been taking in animals in need since I could walk and talk. All animals own me. Have you seen Furball Farms Cat Sanctuary? My goodness, it's absolutely INCREDIBLE. They have over 350 feral cats in this beautiful place. The cats are THRIVING. It's in Minnesota. They just opened an outdoor space (fenced, and LOADED with enrichment). One of their cats, James Baker, got adopted yesterday, and I bawled and bawled.
I do what I can, but they have the greatest rescue set-up EVER. They are ANGELS, saving cats.
Bless you.
Such a well thought out renter-friendly solution for catification❣🐈Even for non-renters it's a great way to utilize the furniture you already have.
Yes, exactly. Thanks for the comment, KaiZen!
You are a treasure to all indoor cats around the world. We just bought a place and I'm going to use your videos to guide on my projects for building best roaming places for my 2 little ones... ❤
Wonderful! I'm sure they will love it! Thanks for the comment, U M!
This was great. Most catification for apartment videos includes wall-damaging aspects. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
I love that your channel is dedicated to catification!
Great idea. Currently figuring out access points for my two kitties in my new condo. I may try this with a server cabinet I plan to buy for the dining room. Thanks for your time making these videos, much appreciated!
Thanks so much for your comment, Jennifer!
Brilliant! 👍👍💖💖
Thank you, Solyluna! 😃
@@9LivesToLive 😉👋👋
Excellent tutorial. Extremely creative and thoughtful. I have one cat, Ms. Puff and she runs around my house doing the headless chicken dance. I tried a second cat, and they just did not get along. Fortunately, my son was looking for a cat so she moved in with him. Giving Ms. Puff ways to climb and play are priorities. Thank you for the ideas.
You are welcome, Robin! Glad you liked the videos.
Your videos are always so helpful! My sister and I have one cat - our landlord is wonderful, but says no more cats. We know she gets bored even though we try our best to keep her entertained. Before I watched this I thought this could be our answer! Although it was an excellent idea as always, we are both in our 70's and have no power tools. This is probably a stupid question, but is there any way to maybe repurpose a ladder for her to climb on to get to the top of a bookcase? Would that be dangerous for her? Greatly appreciate all of your videos, please keep them coming. God bless you and your adorable fur babies! 🙏💕
I think a cat could go up a ladder easily, but I am not sure it would come down. It might try to jump, which would not be good. Thanks for your comment, Diane!
@Diane Kay you can get so many different kinds of “ladder shelves” now, which might be perfect! Same basic idea as a ladder, but instead of rungs there are proper shelf platforms that would work for your cat to get down as well 😺
@@EmmaVB82 Many thanks! I will surely look into that! 🤗💐
Also you can secure a small board to the ladder if it's one that painters use (restore or FB marketplace etc) that can be painted to match the room.
very thoughtful of you to consider renters' issues. loved seeing your cats. love the classical music. well done!!
Thanks so much for the kind comment, Rae!
Another option I have found is using 3m glue brackets with the removable glue you simply pull down the glue comes free and they go up to 25 pound holding power they come in all sorts of things from hooks to brackets to hangers and just the glue strip you can stick on a bracket bought from the hardware store
Have you tested the glue with cats? I'd be worried that the glue wouldn't hold with them jumping around.
Where I live the walls are cement and it's hard drilling holes. I use my book shelves and cat trees and one way down is on my husband's desk. lol We don't have dogs so they run around and around the apartment.
Sounds like a great set up!
Instead of drill screws in studs or a brick wall you can use height adjustors (used in legs of tables or cabinets to level them)
Just put them on the end of a 4x4 wooden plank just shy of the height of the rooms and tighten them.
These can even be put in the middle of a room. And you can put the walkways by connecting them to these wooden pillars.
No need to screw anything to a wall and everything is adjustable.
Linking a video where they are using sections of pipes screwed together and held in place by a hydraulic shaft but this is cheaper and fully customizable.
czcams.com/users/shortsaWx0jm7055M?feature=share
Great idea! Have you tried this yourself? I wonder if the height adjustors are strong enough to keep a post stable? Could a full sized cat throwing himself at it during a chase game shift it? It's worth experimenting. Thanks for the idea!
Brilliant!! It’s just what I need in my studio. Thank you!!!
Wonderful! Thanks for the comment, Cyn!
Yes that’s very helpful. I don’t have sturdy bookcases but maybe the wardrobe could be used. Good ideas thanks. I’ve got plenty of carpet so that helps.
A wardrobe is a great idea. They are much deeper and probably don't even need an anchor. Thanks for the comment!
Thankyou for sharing.
I found carpet remnants at the local Dollar Tree - 1 x 4 (feet) that work great on top of my bookshelves. I also found a cardboard cat house at Aldi for $8 that I put on top of one (anchored to the shelves so it doesn't slide off). The cat house comes with two sections of corrugated scratch pads. I removed those and put part of an old bathroom rug in the house - they love sleeping in their little house.
Love the little house idea!
Thanks for the great ideas.
Great job! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for showing other options for this
Amazing!!! Thank you so much for this awesome solution!!
Great❤ thanks
Yup, this is part of my four-wall living room cat parkour. I have the IKEA Hemnes TV stand, with single bookcase on each side, connected with the bridge. There is a 5 ft. cat tower on one side to access the top of the entertainment center, and staggered shelves on the other side.
Its was easy and cheap. Menards sells 24" x 36" carpets for $1.88 that can be cut in half to wrap two shelves. Got 8 ft. MDF board and cut in into 15" segments. Shelf brackets are cheap. Used glue gun and construction staples to affix carpet to boards on underside of boards.
Last week, I picked up 15" round boards which I'll cut in half to make half moon shelves, for another parkour wall. Found a carpet store that gives away free cardboard tubes from carpet rolls, so I'll wrap those with sisal rope, and put a 2x4 down the inside to add sturdiness.
I figure I have 80 to 100 holes to patch and repair when my lease is up. 🤣🤣
Wow, four walls! That's fantastic! Love the idea of the half moon shelves. Thanks for the comment, D Light!
@@9LivesToLive The MDF board I use for long shelves and steps is 1/2 inch thick. I was able to find 1/2 inch thick round pine boards at Michaels craft store, in a wide range of diameters - I purchased 15 inch and 18 inch rounds. Looks so much better than Lowes/Home Depot 1 inch thick rounds.
I also make carpeted tunnels with concrete form tubes. You can slice those tubes into sections and nail in a pine round for a bottom to make round beds, just like the store bought cat furniture.
These are some great suggestions! Thanks for sharing them!
Thank you sooo much !!!!
You're welcome! Thanks for watching, Prince.
I love your ideas!
Thanks, Kay!
At the end of last year I bought a new fridge-freezer to replace the tiny one built in under a counter in my kitchen (though I still need to preferably sell it or otherwise make it go away! I’m going to move a cupboard into its space from across the room, then *finally* buy a dishwasher to go in that space next to the sink 😃 playing kitchen tetris over here!), and one of the factors that went in to my choice was one with a flat top without any vents or operational elements, so that my cats could go on top 😊 Bit of a variation on your solution, but while I’m not a renter anymore, you at least don’t need to make holes in the walls to repurpose existing furniture/appliances for your cats to make use of too (provided you’ve got a way for them to get up and down!)
The new fridge is a massive 2 meters tall, and right now their access route to get on top is a very makeshift solution involving a sturdy tall box (that once contained my kitchen bin!) stacked on top of a storage ottoman… this sounds much worse now I’ve written it down than it is in reality, and I promise it’s all fully secure! I can comfortably stand on the storage ottoman safely and nothing wobbles 😅 I need to have a huge clearout of all the boxes and old stuff that’s accumulated here, and since I don’t have a spare room or a garage the bit between my kitchen and living room has turned into the “junk zone”, and I’m looking forward to replacing that bin box hack with a few shelves for them to jump onto instead!
They do love sleeping on top of the fridge, or just surveying the space/watching me while I cook! They also manage to squeeze up on top of the kitchen cabinets from there too, though there’s really not enough height between them and the ceiling (18cm) to be that comfortable, alas… I also want to make a skyway around the room too, with a big long shelf going above the big window to span the two sides of the room, and maybe some different kinds of wall catifications stretching from the window up to the kitchen… I think I should *just* have enough space because that’s a 25cm gap above the window, if I can find a shelf/bracket system that can get as close to the top of the window recess as possible, and then figure out the spacing at each end for them to get up onto the window shelf when there’s not a load of headroom for them to jump! My catification is definitely all still a work in progress 😸
Those sound like good ideas to me, Emma. Another commenter mentioned that he was going to use a wardrobe. All those items are very stable because they are deeper than a bookcase.
This is a fantastic idea!!! Love the habitat for humanity restore recommendation too
So glad you think so, Dru!
Great ideas thank you 💫
You're welcome, Ange!
Love this idea.
So glad!
what a great video for renters thank you from melbourne
You're welcome E G!
Great idea 👍
Thank you, Jennifer!
Yeah mine climbs on top of the fridge and let's her paws 🐾 hang off and watch me, lol
LOL!
Really ingenious!! Happy cats ! Thank you for your videos :) I subscribe
Thanks for watching and for subbing!
Very good idea !
Thank you! Cheers!
Excellent video.
Glad you liked it!
Thank you so much ❤❤❤
Always welcome
Just the tips for handling the carpet was worth me subscribing. Thank you!
Glad it helped!
I Love my four rescued cats. You explain everything so well! Thank You so much!
Happy to help!
I really like this idea. I'm not very handy myself, but I could probably tackle this.
Thanks for the video and the clips of your happy cats!
Glad it was helpful!
I love your well-loved books on your bookshelves
Yay, thank you!
Your videos are excellent and you are very knowledgeable/informational, THANIYOU!
If someone rents they should not be drilling holes in walls without permission, and expect to pay for a professional to restore/repaint the entire wall if they do. I have had tenants fill holes with toothapaste, and they always leave the property in worse condition.. One should expect to leave a home in the same condition they entered, or indemnify the owner.
As a landlord, I am sure you have seen enough damage to last a lifetime. I agree that the toothpaste thing is ridiculous. But I don't agree that paying a professional to fill a couple of holes and paint a wall is necessary. Drilling holes causes less damage than nailing into a wall, which can cause chipping and other problems. I rented for many years, and always got back the full deposit. But I also expected to live in the space, which included decorating the walls. (I found that those tape hanging devices cause much more damage than nails.) I think most people expect to be able to do that as long as they leave the space in similar condition to its original. Otherwise, what? Tell prospective tenants in advance that the walls must remain bare unless they contract a professional to repaint the apartment? Maybe some people would agree to that, but I think most won't. And if they have cats, painting a wall might be the smallest issue at the end of their stay. But thanks for watching. I appreciate your comment, and it's an important reminder for any tenant to know the landlord's expectations before leasing an apartment.
Very helpful. 😊
I'm so glad!
Very nice job! ❤ Great work 🌹❤️
Thank you! Cheers!
Gracias por los consejos Francisco, un saludo desde España.
Gracias, Zaromaco!
"Calisto, Skyfall, and *Mister Muffin."*
LOL!
Awesome! Thanks for all you do! Now make them and sell them ;)
thank you for this, moving soon and definitely want to keep my monkey happy.
You can do it! Thanks for watching, DOTC!
Im going to look for free bookcases ,, hopefully, 2 or 3. Im going to leave the shelves empty, cutting squares and or circles on oppsote ends so the 2 kitties can climb up them (1 kitty is 12 ill secure ramps eith carpeting for her to rasily travel) to the top. Ill buy s fee planks for running , making them not yo far apart securing them with hardware for the zoomie times. TY i wanted to secure them to the walls. I know how moe with the tip you gave. I do have a few hesvy rocks I'll put in the bottom also for added weight. Thanks so much! Lolol they'll love these!
Great idea!
Very nice, Thank you SO MUCH😂
No problem! Thank you for watching.
This is brilliant!! I want to do this as i have two ferals and the male one i can tell needs more stimulation. For us with little carpentry experience could you PLEASE make another video showing how you attached the shelves to the pole. Also, are the horizontal wood pieces going from the bookcase to the door screwed into the wall too? Thank you! New subscriber ❤
Hi Rosaura! The horizontal pieces are not attached to the wall. The only thing attached to the wall are the anchors to keep the shelves from tipping. The little shelves are just screwed into the edge of the horizontal boards. The boards should be at least 3/4 inch and drilled for the screws to keep them from splitting. But if woodworking is a problem, just use a tall cat tree. It would be the easiest method for you. Thanks for your question!
Спасибо, такой вариант мне подходит.
Пожалуйста.
I have 3 cat trees in my front picture window close enough to easily jump and levels staggered so they can jump up from tree to tree.
Sound like a great setup!
I have a question please....How wide are the catwalk shelves?
8 inch nominal, actual size 7.25 inches.
Stud? In the UK we have brick walls.
That certainly makes it harder. There are brick anchors, but you might not want to drill holes into them.
We also have plasterboard walls with studs in the UK (especially for internal walls), but it depends on your property - I live in a new build apartment block with plasterboard walls (and mercifully *excellent* soundproofing between the flats! 😌) but even in my old flat in a Victorian terrace, while the external walls were brick, the internal ones between rooms and subdividing into flats were all plasterboard (and NO soundproofing! 😫 I could hear ever conversation and argument my neighbours had when they were in particular rooms of their flats… I definitely don’t miss living there!)
(I don’t have any useful advice about dealing with brick walls though… my DIY skills are very limited!)
Do you recommend the stud finder you're using? I haven't found many with good reviews
I use a Zircon L50. It is not too expensive ($20) and has two settings for depth, which helps. There are others which are much more expensive, maybe they are better. The problem with stud finders is that many older walls are more than just drywall and can interfere with the reading. In some cases I have to search for the stud at different heights of the wall to get an accurate reading.
@@9LivesToLive thanks for the advice! my goal is to add some catwalks this month to help my 4 cats relationships 😊
you can find carpet cut outs at dollar tree
Great suggestion! Thanks!
Yes, but I rent furnished. And I don't have a cat. Oh well
Problem solved!! 👍
Funny!
My cat prefers the floor 🤷♀️
LOL. Some cats do, but most like to climb, at least a little.
Where can I find a husband like you? The perfect Daddy for my 5 cats.
LOL!
POV - you're a woman watching this with no tools, space, or skills.
You can gain the skills and acquire tools slowly. Don't sell yourself short.
Get to the point!
Thanks for the suggestion.
THERE IS NOTHING CALLED AN INDOOR CAT!
That is like saying indoor horse.
Keeping a cat inside is animal abuse.
Cats are meant to roam and have independence, if you can't give a cat, or any animal for that matters, what it needs to have a healthy, normal life, DO NOT GET AN ANIMAL!
okay
That is amazing I just ordered an extra large cat tree but this looks like he would like it also. I think I will get a book shelf n cut holes in shelves to go from one to the next. I go to the library for books. Thanks 😊.
Fun idea, Linda! Thanks for sharing!