Bit of background, we took in Daisy as she had no home aged 5 months. As the area we live in is busy traffic-wise we had no real issues with deciding she'd be a house cat, made more immediately neccessary by the fact we live in a 2nd floor flat (nice and spacious though).
I was aware straight away there would be an issue with windows and a young cat, with a flat not at ground level. Our front room windows are standard vertical wood framed, with push-out latched uppers. Our bedrooms are, however, skylight velux's.
Reason i'm giving a windows sales patter is from day one i've been concerned about how best to handle the summer and these windows with Diasy. There are different risks, the skyslights, as part of angled ceilings, give direct access to the roof - the front room windows, being vertical, have a 30ft drop from them. Being the top of a 3 floor building we get all the heat both from the roof soaking up sun, and the two floors below. So open windows is neccessary for our (and daisys) staying cool. My initial response has been to buy some pond netting, adhesive velcro and gaffer tape and have manufactured net screens for each window that can be velcroed into place when they're opened. Unfortunately however the sun has dried out the adhesive on the gaffer tape (used as a flexible 'frame' for the netting) and thus, with a growing cat, I am no longer happy they can withstand a climbing attempt!
What's brought things to a head really is when I got back from a run on tuesday and sat infront of a fully open window cooling down. Daisy, ever the strategist, spotted her chance and made a jump for the vertical window - had the adrenaline not been in my system there's no way I could have been as fast as I was in grabbing her before she toppled over the edge.
So, has anyone had any similar situations and can you recommend a solution? Daisy's not so bothered about being 'outside' - we have a lead and regularly take her out into the garden for a walk/look round, but she's not too fussed. She is however extremely inqusitive and even worse seems to relish getting into places she knwos she's not allowed, once you shoo her once she adds it to the 'mental list' of places run into!
