Hi all.  I'm a lurker with 8 fuzzies - just wanted to share our
couch-proofing technique.
 
We bought several pieces of foam board (3 feet high and varying widths) from
an office store.  We used packaging tape on the outsides of the foam board
(the part that would be on the carpet) and taped the all the foam board
together to form one big long piece ... that bent where the tape was.  On
the "free" ends, we used velcro.  This formed a wall around the sofa
(sleeper sofa type).  At first, the kids tried to climb it, but because it's
so smooth, they just slid back onto the ground.  They also tried to dig up
the wall - but we put some folded towels over the top to hold the whole
thing down.  They pretty much left the couch alone after realizing that they
wouldn't get thru.
 
This contraption is easily removed and stored as it folds flat.  And we also
used foam board with velcro to block off any other areas of access (under
the heater, near the fridge and stove).
 
The cost for all this was around $20 for the entire ferret play area.  And
because we used tape on the outsides, the foam board never came apart when
the fuzzies initially tried to dig.  The tape we used was probably the most
expensive part of this whole thing cuz it was very durable - and sticky!
(We wanted to make sure none of them could rip it apart and eat the foam
pieces.)
 
Just a suggestion.
Ursula and John
Boo, Buster, Pickles, Peanut, Sammy, Slinky, Sox, Kiki
[Posted in FML issue 1640]