Hi,

I thought I'd throw this problem out to the group, as you all seem to be
so very clever with your animals.

I live in a second floor apartment, with windows on all sides and an
enclosed back porch.  (If you're familiar with Chicago two-flats, you
know what I mean.)  The apartment gets great cross ventilation if I leave
the back door open, which I feel quite safe in doing.  

The problem comes with Doc.  Doc wants to be an indoor-outdoor cat, and
we have been disagreeing about that since he deigned to grace me with his
presence four and a half years ago.  If the back door (to the apartment,
on the second floor) is open, he manages to get down to the first floor,
and from there often manages to get outside, or gets into the downstairs
apartment, if they've left their window open for ventilation.  Not good.

Last summer I had an old aluminum storm door across the top of the
stairs, but it doesn't really fit the opening.  That is, it fits at the
bottom, and up to about three feet, where the railing is.  But there's a
gap of about five inches from about three feet up to the top of the
stairwell, where the ceiling is about ten feet.  I had covered the
opening with cardboard duct-taped into place, and that held him for a
while.  If he couldn't see over it, to see where he was jumping, he
didn't jump.  

I'm trying to figure out a better solution to the problem.  I thought of
stretching canvas across, but I suspect he might just climb the canvas.  
The guy is fearless.  

It's January in Chicago now, so I'm really not *too* worried about cross-
ventilation right now, but soon I will want to keep the back door open.  
Does anybody have any ideas about how to go about this?  

BTW, I'm a grad student, and therefore broke.  My landlord and the
downstairs neighbor are both quite handy, and I think they will help if I
can come up with something, but spending more than a few bucks on this is
just not possible.  

Help?

Chak