Cat enclosure for a balcony

[klpca]

We recently helped our daughter buy a condo (well, we bought it and the plan is to have her own it when the economy settles down - so it's ours for now, lol). One of the big selling points of the unit was that it is a corner unit and has two balconies. One of the balconies has enclosed stucco walls but we have realized that the cat will be easily able to jump from this balcony to the roof of the condominium. She wanted to build a catio (and we will ask the HOA but we don't have much hope for approval), so does anyone else have any ideas on how to keep a cat off of the edge of a balcony? This balcony has solid stucco walls about 5" wide, and about 4' high on the outside wall, rising to about 5' high on each side as it meets the building wall at an angle.

In thinking about this, I suppose that the other balcony (normal slatted rails - not a solid wall) may also be an issue as it's on the third floor so a fall would be dangerous. Any ideas?

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Screen it in? I doubt the HOA would notice.

 

[wackymother]

I think they make nets that you can use to cover this kind of opening to keep pets in. I'm not sure if you kind of screw them in or if you can put them on a frame of some kind.

In our old condo, you were allowed to get sort of a framework installed inside your balcony, with storm windows for winter and screens for summer. It was nice bc it made your balcony like a solarium, and we had little kids at the time, so we liked that they couldn't climb over the railing. The building only had one approved contractor for this job, to make all the balconies look consistent. Hard to describe, but basically like one of these, only INSIDE the existing rails of the balcony. In theory, it could be removed later.

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[wackymother]

Like this, but the ceiling was the bottom of the balcony above us.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

BTW...Thanks! I never heard of a Catio. This might be what we need for our cat in the Avatar who insists on going outside. We have coyotes in our area and it worries me. We bring him in at night but as it gets warmer he wants to be outside.