I want a Christmas tree in my apartment. It’s my first year out on my own, and I need a real tree in here so I can feel a little Christmassy despite missing my family.
But my cat is possessed. Climbing onto counters, attacking curtains, shredding paper towels, that sort of thing. In short, he’s a kitten. And I’m worried that if I put a tree up, it’s coming straight down the second I leave for work. I’ll make sure to get shatterproof ornaments, no tinsel (I’ve had a cat before, I know the dangers of tinsel-butt), and I won’t put anything on the tree that would upset me if he breaks or eats it. My main worry, though, is just keeping the tree up.
I’ve considered putting little hooks in the walls, so I can tie string to the tree and help keep it up in a corner of the apartment, but I’m reluctant to make more holes in my walls, especially since they’re made of paper and if I want anything to hold, I’ll need to use those drywall screws, which will give me a bug putty job when it’s time to move out.
This is basically what we did when we got monster dog a few years ago. We weren’t sure HOW he’d take a Christmas Tree - he was 18 months old and had never seen one before. Plus, where it goes in the front bay window is where he runs to look out over his neighborhood and he tends to get riled up in there - we could just see this tree getting tipped.
What we did was tuy three guy wires to the top - we attached one to the vertical blind track, one to the chandelier where it attached to the ceiling, and one to a nail we put high up in a corner.
It’s worked for several years now - no tipping at all. And he still gets crazy in that window (we don’t put any ornaments in that quadrant of the tree. It looks stupid but it’s effective.)
If he’s a relatively small kitten and you have a full sized tree with a really quality stand, he’s not bringing it down. He WILL climb it, like a…well, like a tree.
One thing you can do that always worked for us with cats: Get a sheet of plywood, maybe 3 X 3 and permanently attach the tree stand to that. Secure tree in stand, cover contraption with a nice wide tree skirt, and viola - big wide base for your tree.
Are you talking a full-grown tree? ot sure just how crazy your cat is, but he shouldn’t be strong enough to topple one (though I have seen a tag team try this. The tree wasn’t screwed in properly and they were hopped up on pine-scented water).
My best advice is to just make that base as heavy and sturdy as possible, trim the lower branches and keep dangly things out of his eyeline. Adding hooks and strings may just make it all more interesting for him.
I agree that bolting the tree stand to a board is the best way to go, kitten or not. That said, if you’re still hung up on hooks on the wall (edited to add that pun was totally unintentional), consider the large Command Adhesive hooks. They hold a fair bit of weight and do no damage to fragile walls when removed.
(I love Command Adhesive for holiday decorating, and no I don’t work for 3M)
The year our cat was a kitten we put the tree next to a railing and tied it to that. If I’d thought up the sheet of plywood trick I’d have done that, too. I do have some very cute pictures of a little fuzzy face peeking out between the branches, but the tree never fell over. Good luck!
Spraying the area around the tree with a lemon-scented spray (lysol, whatever) will keep the room smelling fresh and most likely keep the kitten away from the tree. Cats are quite repelled by lemon, IME, and this worked well for us when we had indoor cats.
I agree. I have a cat that weighs, oh, 16 pounds or so. He still climbs the tree, so he can lay toward the top. He then falls asleep and falls out, knocking three-quarters of the ornaments off on his way. We’ve yet to have a tree knocked over (knock on wood), but I have to straighten out the branches every day on our artificial tree because of him.
Ok, now this made me laugh. I had a cat that was (seriously) retarded, and she never fell off things, even when asleep, even though she would run into the wall, your legs, whatever (yeh, I am sure she had vision problems, but it was mostly the retardation that caused her to not be able to walk straight). I would love to see a video of the cat falling through the Christmas tree. BWAHAHAHA!
I’d love to catch a video of it, but I’ve only managed to catch it in-person once. Prior to that, I kept coming home to find this weird flat spot toward the top of my tree (artificial; we couldn’t deal with real + cats anymore) and ornaments all over the floor. When I finally saw him do it, it was a major “AHA!” moment.
I second the idea of hanging the tree from the ceiling. If necessary, upside down. (I’m sure I could get watering tips from my mother–she did this way back when. I still have no idea how, but we have pictures for proof.)
You didn’t say if the tree was real or artificial. If real, a couple of points:
Be careful what you put in the water that feeds the tree. He will view it as a water bowl and drink from it.
If he’s long haired, and if there is any pitch on the tree, be prepared for a trip to the groomer or vet after the tree comes down to shave that clump of matted fur.
We are still finding Christmas bits and bobs hidden around the house from last year. We have the world’s most manic cat, and she doesn’t seem to have calmed down a bit since then, so I’m predicting another catastrophic (sorry) Christmas.
Be careful with your kitty though. I had a rambunctious calico who loved to do the same thing. One night I am up alone and I hear god awful screeching from the living room. I run in and Callie (original I know) was hanging upside down from one leg. She apparently had fallen and on her way down had tangled her leg in the lights. I reached around to right her because from the precarious position of her leg I was certain it was going to snap at any moment. As I got my hands around her she turned her head and bit the ever-living shit out of my arm. I yanked her out, with her mouth still attached to my arm, dangling christmas light behind her. Those bites required stitches and I took the tree down for the rest of the season. Funny enough, Callie hasn’t climbed the tree in the Christmases since.
