My cat wreaks havoc on my apartment at night and I'm at my wit's end

gotlembas

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Hi all! I've written here before when my two cats were in their younger kitten years, and now they're in their terrible twos stage. I have two kitties, Arwen who is 1, and Pippin who is almost 2. My younger girl, Arwen, has always been an absolute piece of work--she's the mischief-maker, always gets into everything, and the one who is most frequently getting into trouble.

Lately, she's gotten into the habit of wreaking havoc on my apartment while I'm trying to sleep! I woke up this morning to discover she had scaled my bookshelf and knocked all my memorabilia off it and broken some of it, she somehow tore into a bag of cat treats and helped herself (and I think she literally ate the piece of plastic she tore off to get into the bag because I can't find it anywhere), she tore all the clingies I have on my windows down, and I discovered all of it when I woke up for work this morning.

They have a very tall cat tree with multiple perches and plenty of space to run around, and yet nothing I do seems to keep her from being an absolute little menace while I'm trying to sleep. Sometimes Pippin will join in, but not as often as Arwen, who is the primary concern. I've tried stacking things in front of the bookshelf to keep her from climbing it but every time I think I have her beat, she find another creative way to tear down whatever barricade I've put up to prevent her from climbing up. I've also tried deterrent sprays, double sided sticky-tape, and unfortunately plain old yelling when I catch her doing it because nothing else works and raising my voice, as much as I hate doing it, is the only thing that sends her scurrying under my bed. I feel awful about it, but none of the other methods that are commonly suggested work.

I do play with both of them, but Arwen in particular has so much energy that no matter how much I play with her, she never tires. Believe me, I've tried. I can have her sprinting around my apartment, doing leaps in the air for her favorite feather toy, but no matter how much playtime she gets she continues to be an absolute menace and I'm at my wit's end! I live in a studio apartment, so keeping them out of particular areas is very difficult since there are no doors to close on them. I've raised cats from kittenhood through adulthood before, and my late cats were never like this even in their kitten years! Sure they got into stuff sometimes, but never to the extent Arwen does now, so I've never had to deal with this level of kitty mischief before and I have no idea what else to do. I do my best to keep things away from them that they aren't supposed to get into and keep them away from areas they shouldn't go, but when you live in a studio apartment, there's really only so much you can to do keep things and areas physically out of reach of the cats lol. I do love them very much, but Arwen is really, really testing me right now :')
 

Kris107

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Is it right when you go to bed that she starts up?
I typically have a pattern... We play, then have wind down time, then cats exit bedroom. Occasionally I'll hear the cats messing with stuff, but not all that often. When they do I just have to say "I'll deal with whatever it is tomorrow".
Put all valuables off bookshelf. We have a bookshelf and we had to move a lot of stuff off it. Now it's mostly just books or things that aren't really breakable. Think about a cat's world - kind of small. So they're bound to explore and test limits.
 
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gotlembas

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Is it right when you go to bed that she starts up?
I typically have a pattern... We play, then have wind down time, then cats exit bedroom. Occasionally I'll hear the cats messing with stuff, but not all that often. When they do I just have to say "I'll deal with whatever it is tomorrow".
Put all valuables off bookshelf. We have a bookshelf and we had to move a lot of stuff off it. Now it's mostly just books or things that aren't really breakable. Think about a cat's world - kind of small. So they're bound to explore and test limits.
Yup, it's usually right as I'm trying to go to bed. Last night she was really loudly playing with her toys and I didn't want to discourage her from playing even though it was a little loud so I tried to drown her out with my fan haha. I'm a pretty deep sleeper so unfortunately I don't wake up most of the time when she's knocking things over and getting into things in the middle of the night and I usually discover it all in the morning😅 I'll try playing with her one last time before bed! I also just learned of museum putty, which someone recommended to me as a good way to keep her from toppling any breakables over when she scales shelves, so I'm very intrigued to try that out. It sucks because I want to display my knick knacks and home decor on my shelves, but Arwen knows only destruction haha so I'm going to see if making them less knock-overable will help.
 
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gotlembas

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Hi
Would you have a way to take her/them for walks?
Funny you should say that because I've been harness training both of them! I live on the second floor of my complex and so far she's only comfortable venturing onto the walkway in front of my door, but eventually I hope to get her confidence up enough to be able to take her on full walks. She's constantly wanting to go outside, but as soon as I get her out on her harness she gets very skittish and anxious at the slightest noise or neighbor coming up the stairs. But eventually, yes, that's the goal!
 

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Yup, it's usually right as I'm trying to go to bed. Last night she was really loudly playing with her toys and I didn't want to discourage her from playing even though it was a little loud so I tried to drown her out with my fan haha. I'm a pretty deep sleeper so unfortunately I don't wake up most of the time when she's knocking things over and getting into things in the middle of the night and I usually discover it all in the morning😅 I'll try playing with her one last time before bed! I also just learned of museum putty, which someone recommended to me as a good way to keep her from toppling any breakables over when she scales shelves, so I'm very intrigued to try that out. It sucks because I want to display my knick knacks and home decor on my shelves, but Arwen knows only destruction haha so I'm going to see if making them less knock-overable will help.
Museum wax helped me when one of mine was younger. She loved to knock over vases and watch the water run out all over. I used some wax and never had that issue again. Have you tried puzzles with her? It can be simple even - sometimes I've used empty egg cartons and stick something fun inside and they have to work at it to get it out. Or do you have a track ball scratcher thing? Giving her something productive (?) to do could help?
 

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Cats are truly creatures of habit. Unfortunately one of her habits is now to go bonkers at night and most likely sleep when you are not around.

You need to create a different pattern for her to have. Play as long as you can with her right before you go to sleep and feed her immediately before you go to sleep. So, play then feed.
If you free feed, don’t. Cats are designed to sleep hunt, kill, eat, groom, sleep. Keep that in mind.

This is the kind of cat that might enjoy a cat wheel if you can swing it. With a cat wheel, you can have her running full tilt for an extended amount of time by using the wand toy with the wheel.
 

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Hi all! I've written here before when my two cats were in their younger kitten years, and now they're in their terrible twos stage. I have two kitties, Arwen who is 1, and Pippin who is almost 2. My younger girl, Arwen, has always been an absolute piece of work--she's the mischief-maker, always gets into everything, and the one who is most frequently getting into trouble.

Lately, she's gotten into the habit of wreaking havoc on my apartment while I'm trying to sleep! I woke up this morning to discover she had scaled my bookshelf and knocked all my memorabilia off it and broken some of it, she somehow tore into a bag of cat treats and helped herself (and I think she literally ate the piece of plastic she tore off to get into the bag because I can't find it anywhere), she tore all the clingies I have on my windows down, and I discovered all of it when I woke up for work this morning.

They have a very tall cat tree with multiple perches and plenty of space to run around, and yet nothing I do seems to keep her from being an absolute little menace while I'm trying to sleep. Sometimes Pippin will join in, but not as often as Arwen, who is the primary concern. I've tried stacking things in front of the bookshelf to keep her from climbing it but every time I think I have her beat, she find another creative way to tear down whatever barricade I've put up to prevent her from climbing up. I've also tried deterrent sprays, double sided sticky-tape, and unfortunately plain old yelling when I catch her doing it because nothing else works and raising my voice, as much as I hate doing it, is the only thing that sends her scurrying under my bed. I feel awful about it, but none of the other methods that are commonly suggested work.

I do play with both of them, but Arwen in particular has so much energy that no matter how much I play with her, she never tires. Believe me, I've tried. I can have her sprinting around my apartment, doing leaps in the air for her favorite feather toy, but no matter how much playtime she gets she continues to be an absolute menace and I'm at my wit's end! I live in a studio apartment, so keeping them out of particular areas is very difficult since there are no doors to close on them. I've raised cats from kittenhood through adulthood before, and my late cats were never like this even in their kitten years! Sure they got into stuff sometimes, but never to the extent Arwen does now, so I've never had to deal with this level of kitty mischief before and I have no idea what else to do. I do my best to keep things away from them that they aren't supposed to get into and keep them away from areas they shouldn't go, but when you live in a studio apartment, there's really only so much you can to do keep things and areas physically out of reach of the cats lol. I do love them very much, but Arwen is really, really testing me right now :')
I think you got a lot of good suggestions here. In addition what I would do is immediately remove anything breakable from your bookshelves and anywhere else and replace if desired with non breakable items. Then once your kittens get into the more mature phase there’s a high probability they won’t do that anymore.

At some point, I discovered museum glue for another reason and then I started using that too for breakable items on the mantel place and places like that. Overall, it was OK for things on high up areas but when I was using it for still life and Quinn was there, it didn’t really work very well for some reason. Maybe it was the atmosphere in that room or that it was in paper. And it also gets very sticky in warmer weather and is hard to get off of things. In fact it destroyed the paint on the mantel piece so I think I removed it from everything eventually, also because it made dusting and cleaning items harder.

Over time Quinn, who is my most mechant cat ever, a little Siamese, kind of grew out of knocking things over that were breakable. However, he still loves to knock things off of the counters in the kitchen and elsewhere at times, usually now he picks things that are not breakable, which is good. I almost never have anything breakable like that there now and he knows not to.

Once Sybil knocked over a little porcelain sculpture of a Siamese cat I had just purchased on ebay. She looked at me like she was worried and I couldn’t get mad at her of course…so, I still have it, its little ear is partially broken. I just moved it to another area. That was very unlike Sybil and I think she had jumped up to where it was to sniff it and look at it because it was a cat. She was always so elegant and never knocked anything over so it was an accident or maybe she was trying to get away from the Quinn who harassed her then.

At that time Quinn knocked over a large ceramic sculpture I made years ago and I had to glue it back together, I am not sure if it was him or they were chasing each other and somebody knocked it over. That was the second time that got damaged by cats maybe, lol.

Quinn and Zena are still quite rambunctious. Quinn is about six or seven now, hard to believe, and Xena is about four… right around the time I am getting ready to go to sleep, which is early morning, Zena starts chasing around and Quinn has started doing something I thought he had finally stopped- he will jump on the couch on my stomach or even my chest and kind of push his paws off of me to try to get me involved in the game, that is where my limit is- I don’t think he’s ever going to listen and stop completely so what I do now is I start telling them when they’re running around don’t jump on my feet or my chest etc. Zena is a lot more concerned about it and he will stop and rub on my legs because he knows I’m upset.

Since an injury and Merlin dying and I am exhausted and don’t play with them as much, which Quinn loves, but honestly he would still do that no matter how much I played with him 😹

Yesterday he started bringing one of his twisty tie wires right up to my foot. He dropped it on my foot and touched my foot with his paw so I would throw it for him. I was trying to train Zena to do it too, but although he loves to play with it he has not started fetching yet.

I hope you get this figured out. 😀 I was thinking of a cat wheel too for a long time but I am worried no one will use it and it takes up a lot of space and will be too heavy for me.

Since Arwen likes to go on your bookshelf, maybe you could build her her own shelves, but if she’s anything like my guys or like Quinn in particular, she’ll probably just go on the one that has your stuff on it as well.
 
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