Hi everyone,

I will soon be moving to a 1st floor appartement with an outdoor cat, and I'm looking for a cat-ladder to the balcony kind of solution. The only ones I found are around 1 CHF/cm.

Does anyone know of a better deal ? For those who succeeded in making one, what tips would you suggest ?

I have no idea how difficult it is to make one, what with weight, stability, and wood durability issues. Do standard IKEA shelves rot when outside for example ?

My neighbor uses a rope wrapped in what looks to be cheap Ikea bed linen (old?). The cats just use their paws to go up/down.

Train your cat to jump - it's free...

The Ikea shelf is not a good idea as its made of MDF (particleboard) which will not like the rain. Two Ideas:

Just get a wooden plank, even off a skip and nail little wooden strips on every 4 or 5 inches (this is ENGLISH forum after all or 10 to 12 cm if you are an interloper). Try and get an angle <60 degrees so that the cat isn't going vertically. A scaffold board is ideal as its often treated timber and its good and rough

Get a branch or a trunk of pine from the forest: there are often dead trees lying around. The pine has rough bark that cats can climb with their grippy cat hands

Are you suggesting cat-throwing? I like it!

Careful there. You've just suggested harming kitty cats, even in jest.

There are few crimes as severely punished around here. Lay low and hope they don't see you!

When we lived on the first floor we bought a cheap thick wooden pole, coiled rope around it and attached it to the balcony banister. The rope is the same one they use for cat trees and can be bough separately in pet shops. The cats were then able to climb up and down from the balcony.

I would suggest talking to your neighbors first as they may demand what ever you put up comes down.

Just drop kick it into your living room from outside.

LOL Are they the Newton's?

But, seriously they may take issue if it's unsightly...

Plank and strips as suggested is flavour with the neighbours round here

Be creative, make something yourself.

Cat-a-pult?

But they are tricky and scratchy so you have to be careful

You can use the handy handle at the back of the cat to hold it.

You are not allowed to remove from the woods/forests anything bigger than your arm - so that won't work.

I hope you already have a cat-flap - if not getting one installed in a sealed unit gets expensive.

Meanwhile I build polycarbonate replacement panels - and spiral staircases. Neither are cheap - but the combination is self supporting - and need no mounting into the building.

Yes it will

Looks like a bag of intestines!