We have two baby gates ready for installation to close off some areas in our second floor. One of these will be an attempt to make the office a cat sanctuary, complete with water, food and litter box. I'm wondering how well it's going to work. The elder of our two cats doesn't seem to like sneaking between the bars of the gate we already have. This may end in tragedy. Maybe not actual tragedy, but replanning our strategy.

Allergic to cats. Wife hates dogs. We're a fish and rodent family.

No cats but we have two dogs. They are both about 10 years old and for now it's not a problem. They could care less what he's doing and I'm pretty sure he doesn't really even know they exist. I am concerned for when he gets older and more curious though. Are you keeping the cats away from the kids or the kids away from the cats?

Are you keeping the cats away from the kids or the kids away from the cats?

Neither. We need to keep the kids out of the litter box and the food and water dishes. Major temptations. No problems, yet. Yet.

Oh yeah, I didn't think about the litter boxes. Good luck.

I think we have our solution. But we've unveiled a problem, too.

Babygates can be advertised as being rated for stairs. But not all are rated for the top of stairs. A "trip" bar doesn't really work well for the top of stairs. It's hard to tell how JPMA certification works in that regard.

So, we're probably trying to return the gates we have and getting the kind that mounts directly to the wall and then the whole thing swings out of the way. We can hang them up higher off the ground so that a cat can crawl underneath but the kids won't be able to.

Definitely need a baby gate episode.

I took another look at the box for the baby gates we were returning. They are certified by the people who do that sort of thing and they were certified for the top of the stairs. But it shouldn't have passed. If putting a trip wire 2 inches from the floor at the very top of your steps is considered safe, I'd be wrong. This pretty much does any confidence I have in this certification system the manufacturers have come up with. This seems an obvious lapse in judgement.

And this is tertiary, but BrU is on my naughty list. They wouldn't take the gates back. Unless you have the receipt and the credit card it was purchased with or a gift receipt from it being on your registry, you can't return merchandise. They thought that if I had my Mother-in-Law's phone number so they could look it up, they could wait for her to drive up to complete the return... From three hours away! I just wanted a different gate. Burn my buffers!

Ok, so I kept that gate and went across the street to Target, which has an excellent return policy. They had two gates I liked. Both are FirstSteps brand gates. One is a wood, bracket mounted gate. I'll be able to mount this as high or low as I want at the top of the steps.

The second one is awesome, though! It's plastic with clear plastic windows. The best part of it is that it operates both as a tension mounted gate and as a bracket mounted gate. There's a handle on top that, when raised, releases the tension on rubber tipped plungers. It's used to fasten the door even when bracketed. What really nice about that handle is that my wife and I both have managed to remove and replace the gate with one hand. It's solid. Right now we're using it to the office to see how high it should go when it's fixed in place. If I had four of those, I'd be happy. The steel tension gates are nice for a while, but they have to be mounted perfectly and eventually you'll catch some clothing on them and either tear your clothes or bend a bracket.

I think I found the safety gate I like.