I’m the proud owner of a Bengal cat who’s an indoor cat, partly because it would be totally unfair to let such a redoutable predator attack the local fauna and partly because I live in the town centre with very busy streets all around.
I’m scared of letting her get out on our narrow but very long balcony as I live on the sixth flour and I’m scared she could fall down as the little metal guardrail is not very high and somewhat narrow.
So far I’ve used a cat protection system which is taped to our big living room window so that I can air my place without letting her get out. I’ve had it for about a year, but it’s clearly not a long lasting solution as the tapes don’t glue well to the windowsil (temperature changes, rain, UV, etc.).
Do you have any advice on how to catt-proof a window? Specific products or websites? I don’t want to pay to have a screen professionally installed, it must be screw-free as I’m renting, and I’m not very good at building stuff…
It would depend on the style of your window but a clip-in insect screen works - up to a point as if the cat sees a fly or other insect on the other side then it may go for it and you’ll end up with a hole!
They do work with Bengals though and if you buy the kit from a DIY shed and measure and cut it yourself (and buy some spare netting), it’s quite cost effective.
They clip in over the window frame with metal clips on springs.
This video is not to clear but it may help. The spring clips mean you can take the screen out to clean the window sill/frame.
Nothing is permanently attached to the window or frame.
The screen frame is on the inside of the window frame so the cat can’t push it through.
We’ve got the ones in the link but I bought them once cheaper at Lidl but they are exactly the same as the Migros ones.
I was thinking that if the mesh wasn’t strong enough, you could still use the screen frame and something a bit stronger attached to the screen frame. It might not look pretty through and you would need to make sure any mesh was such a size that a cat couldn’t get a paw or head stuck.
We’ve got some green netting which is reinforced with wire. The size of the holes is such that the cat can put their head through but they can’t climb through.
We’ve got this, specifically for cats:
