Cat scratching banisters....

[PotOfTulips]

Any advice welcome!

Our cat is a young male with access to the outside during the day.
He scratches the staircase banisters and has picked off some of the paint, down to bare wood. We stop him when we see him doing it, but he clearly also does it at times when we aren't at home.

Any advice or shall I just get metal banisters?

Try a really tall scratch post they like to stretch right out to scratch and the banister probably allows that and it’ll be stable too.

Cheaper to sand and gloss over the top - if it's matte or older paint on them, the change makes it harder and less satisfying to scratch.

Then a very tall scratching post nearby, possibly with a second that is actual bare wood instead of covered with fabric/rope. Spike it with catnip if necessary to get him obsessed with it.

I've had two cats at completely different times decided that the best scratching post of all time was a table leg - and when the table was removed (I was half wondering whether it would begin to look as though a Beaver had been chewing at it), the second one needed to find something else. I was not happy to find that his something else wasn't the scratching post, wasn't any of the scratching blocks, slopes. boards or any of the other things I spent out on.

It also wasn't the stair runner (despite being sisal) or the landing carpet.

It was the wooden frame underneath the fabric at the back of the bloody brand new sofa.

I'm definitely starting to think there is no guaranteed way to stop the cat doing anything he really wants !

My girl cat does this, she runs along the upstairs landing banisters in what is an incredible feat of balance whilst taking off all the paint with her claws as she goes 🤬. I've bloody given up, my paintwork is in tatters. I've decided to live like this and just paint over it if/when we decide to move house. Not much help, I know, but I've tried everything to make her stop and she couldn't care less

We had offcuts of carpet fixed around our newel posts with cable ties, which prevented some of the damage

Is this your first cat, by any chance?

Because you have just hit upon a fundamental truth of cat servitude there.

The key is doing your damnedest to convince the cat that what he wants to do is something that suits you. Like sleeping on an armchair of his own because it's got a fake fur cover, rather than up in your face all day and all night, observing from the safety of a kitchen chair because he gets treats there, rather than getting trodden on or weaving around your legs as you take the chicken out the oven - or spiking an unwanted scratching post with nip so he has to bother it instead of your new sofa.