Cookie and Pippin, the feline rascals of this home, have always been keen on cat scratchers. Ideally as high as the windows so they can observe the happenings outside. And we love to accommodate their wishes. However it’s with heavy heart to say that cat scratching posts aren’t made to be particularly durable in this day and age. The cat scratcher you see in the photos below is less than 2 years old. I would say perhaps a year and a half at the most. And it bloody fell apart! We debated replacing it with a much pricier one made out of solid wood, however they are VERY expensive for us at the moment. So we decided to fix it. And this is how it went.
How to fix an old cat tower?
Most cat scratching towers are made out of paper (like, what?!), covered in thin pieces of fluffy textiles or carpets, with some sisal rope wrapped around the posts. That’s not exactly idea because all of these materials are prone to destruction by the power of a cat claw.
To repair said crappy scratching post, we opted for a cheap fluffy rug from IKEA (this is the one we used, they don’t make it as fluffy anymore, it was actually an old rug we’ve had for ages that started turning a little grey-ish). And a lot of fresh sisal rope from a local rope shop.
At first I ripped off everything that was loose. Originally everything was secured with metal staples that were slowly coming off when the cats were using the scratcher. That was pretty bad because we were worried they could accidentally swallow the staples and injure themselves. So when I ripped them all off I felt a huge relief. SAFETY AT LAST!
Secondly, I cut up the rug (one was enough) to cover all three perches. I secured the rug with a hot glue gun. Then I started entwining the posts with sisal rope – again securing the ends with some hot glue. And tadaaaah – the cat tower looks brand new!
With the low waste mindset we figured that throwing away this huge cat tower, which was in fact quite expensive a year or so ago, would have been a horrible waste. Fixing it was ever so affordable – around £20 including the rug and sisal rope, and the cats actually love it more now than they did before!
Do you ever repair rather than repurchase things?