Hi everyone!
 
I just wanted to add our experience on the fridge/kitchen issue.  We
live in an apartment and we're not exactly sure what all is okay for our
little girls to explore out of the stuff that was already there when we
came (i.e. inside the kitchen cabinets, the stove, etc.). The kitchen
was our biggest problem - all thecabinets had an open area under the
base of the cabinet.  Pepper & Salt walked right inside this opening.
They couldn't get up inside the cabinet, but we didn't know *what* they
could get into.  I didn't want to find them next door under our
neighbor's sink!  Especially since we're not allowed pets in our place!
My husband got a lot of that rubberish baseboard stuff and screwed it
over those openings.  It kind of looks like we have baseboard running
along our kitchen cabinets & sink areas.  This has worked great.  We did
the same for th fridge.  Our fridge sits in the corner and the only
opening was from the left back side.  So we put a long enough piece of
cardboard standing upright to cover that 3-4 inch gap leading to the
back of the frige.  Then he attached the baseboard over top of the
cardboard and around the rest of the frige.  Works perfectly.  We still
close the kitchen off during the day when we go to work - just in case,
but they have the run of the rest of the apartment (minus bedroom &
bathroom).
 
Now....onto the COUCH issue...AGAIN.  For those of you who are new and
haven't heard about the couch, let me fill you in briefly.  After
ferretproofing the apartment, the living room furniture was the only
areas left unsafe.  There were a few holes in the lining on the
underside of the couches & chair.  They climbed right up inside and
would scratch at the couch from the inside, stash everything up inside
and poop in every area they felt was fit to be a toilet - which covered
just about every corner and usually right besides the *hole* they used
to get in and out (which just happened to be the same hole that mommy
would have to reach inside and pull Pepper out like a magician would
pull a rabbit out of a hat! - I'll give you three guesses on *how* I
found out they were using the couch lining as a bathroom!!)  Well our
first choice was to remove the legs of the couch.  It took all of 3
minutes to figure out that they could get to the same spot from
underneath the cushions.  This presented a problem - they couldn't climb
back out.  After more piles of poop and stranded fuzzies inside that
couch when mommy & daddy were at work (although they didn't see it as
being stranded inside there - they thought of it as a HUGE bedroom and
looked a little peeved when we disturbed them trying to get them out) we
decided to put the legs back on and remove the bottom lining.  This
worked like a charm - they didn't get inside the couch anymore.  They
just dragged half of the apartment under there with them and they slept
all day under there.  This worked for a while but then they started
getting REAL lazy and not coming out to use their potty.  They were
going left and right under there and to top it off, they were still
dragging half of the apartment under there.  Needless to say, anything
that went under that couch needed to be WASHED off when it came out -
including our babies!  They'd step in it, roll over on it and it just
wasn't worth the headache.  We took the legs back off and we decided
that we'd have to block the top of the couch somehow so that they
couldn't sneak in under the cushions.  We bought some heavy duty plastic
and stappled it to the couch under the cushions  They will sit and dig
at this until they manage to move it just enough to sneak under it and
work their way down inside the couch.  Don't worry - there's no risk of
them suffocating on the plastic - its not set up like that.  We tried
sewing a sheet in the same spot - but they quickly learned how to break
the thread.  :)
 
Does anyone have a suggestion on where to go from here?  Buying a futon
is out of the question, unless we come into some money, plus the
furniture is about a year old.  And we can't keep them from the living
room.  ANY comment or suggestion would help!  Thanks everyone - and our
babies thank you too (although they don't know it yet)!
 
Michelle & Kenny, mommy & daddy
Salt (the thief) & Pepper (the couch-expert), the children who can't
understand why it's wrong to go potty all over the bathroom floor when
after-all it IS a bathroom!
[Posted in FML issue 1021]