Question:
Hi, I'm new here.
My wife and I are going to get a cat soon. However, we live in an apartment complex where maintenance people may come in while we're away. Any cat owner will know that this can potentially be trouble. We don't really like the idea of shutting our cat in a smaller room. The apartment layout has a door frame that separates the two bedrooms and one bathroom from the living room area where the maintenance people would do work. We're not sure if we're allowed to put up a folding door (or anything that would require drilling into a wall) there so we need to know if there's something else that we could do. Like a fence or something. Preferably something we can move out of the way or store in a small area while we're at home.
We were thinking about something like a toddler fence, but we're afraid that's too short and the cat could jump over it. Any suggestions?

Answer:
Baby gates are good for keeping dogs away from cats or shut off in a space, not the other way around. Though you might not like the idea of it, the only way to know for sure that your cat will be protected and not have the ability to run out when maintenance dudes are around is to lock him/her in the bedroom with food and litter pan. Not ideal I know, but you can't take the chance and cats are GREAT climbers/jumpers I too live in an apartment (have 2 dogs) and I have to lock both dogs in my bedroom when maint. comes in since my pointer can scale 8 ft. fences and therefore cannot be trusted with a 3 ft. gate.

Answer:
Butterfinger,Welcome to the Forum!!
I am assuming no maintenance-people can go in to your apt without first notifying you and closing your cat in a room for a day,is really not bad if it keeps him safe.
I think my cats would hide,would strangers come in to the house
We have 3 cats and we use left-over"lattice"we bought when we were building a fence,if we need to keep the cats out of a room.
It can be folded and put away,of course it's not 100% safe,but my cats have not attempted to climb it,it's about 5 feet tall.
We don't attach it to anything,but you could use little screw-hooks.
Putting up a sign"Don't let the cat out!!!"could also help...

Answer:
When I bring in an unknown cat inside my home, I use 3 baby gates, one on top of eachother. That creates a pseudo-screen door they can't jump over.

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lol, isn't funny how pet ownership brings out the inventor in us!

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Thanks for the advise! Unfortunatly, jawert1 and chico2, the maintenance people could come in without warning (they have master keys). They DO have a schedule, but we're not always told about it.
Stacking the baby gates might be what we have to do. Since our cat will be an exclusively indoor cat we're getting it's front paws declawed. That would probably hinder its climbing ability.

Answer:
Please do not even consider declawing your cat. It is a cruel and unnecessary procedure. Simply providing a rough mat or a scratching post - which it can easily be trained to use - is sufficient, along with regular nail trims.
Declawed cats frequently become biters, since they have no other way of defending themselves.
If you are truly paranoid about your furniture, declawed cats occasionally come into rescue; look for one of those.

Answer:
My cats aren't declawed and their nails never prevented them from being contained

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