My boyfriend and I recently moved into an apartment with his 2 cats, ages 5 + 6. It's a duplex, with the 2 floors connected by a spiral wrought iron staircase. The first few days the cats hid out downstairs. There's a litterbox on each level and they are fed on the kitchen on the 1rst floor. The 5-year-old (darla), after 3 days in the apt, decided the staircase is her new jungle gym and regularly amuses herself zipping up and down it. The 6-year-old (heather) came upstairs and, as far as we can tell, has not gone back down. We're not sure if she had an unpleasant experience on the stairs while we were at work, but there's no physical reason she should not be able to go up and down the stairs, ie, she is capable of great acrobatics + feats of balance on the upper level. The problem is, she WILL NOT go down, even for meals! After 2 days of not eating, we started bringing her meals up to her, but my bf wants her to eat in the kitchen like her sister. How do we get Heather over her phobia of the metal staircase?