Aechonow Cat Stairs: An Honest Review, Pros and Cons

The part nobody puts in a review is the waiting. I ordered the Aechonow 3-in-1 pet stairs in August, put them together on a Tuesday afternoon, set them at the foot of our bed, and then spent four days watching a nine-year-old orange tabby walk straight past them on his way to something else. The stairs were fine. The cat had not made up his mind yet.

Biscuit is nine and carries about fourteen pounds. Over the summer he had started stopping at the edge of our tall old bed, gathering himself, and then jumping like it was a chore instead of a game. At his checkup our vet said he was a little stiff for his age, nothing diagnosed, and that making the climb easier was a reasonable thing to do. That is the entire reason these stairs are in our house. Not a behavior problem, and not because I believe a set of steps fixes anything in a cat's body. Ask your own vet about your own cat. I teach middle school science. I am not a veterinarian and I am not a cat behaviorist.

What Nobody Tells You Before You Buy Pet Stairs

Three things, and all three of them matter more than how the thing looks in a photograph.

The first is that the top step has to land somewhere. A staircase is only useful if the last level puts your cat next to a surface he is willing to step onto. In our room the Aechonow stairs stand against the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, so Biscuit goes up three short levels, crosses the chest lid, and steps down onto the quilt. Had I set them on the other side of the bed with nothing waiting at the top, they would have been a small tower with a drop on the far side, and he would have ignored them for a month. Measure the thing your cat is trying to reach. Then measure the stairs. Then decide.

The second is that the cat who needs the help is often the cat least interested in a new object appearing in his bedroom. June, who is three and weighs about eight pounds, was on the second step inside ten minutes. Biscuit walked the long way around the whole assembly for four days.

The third is the footprint. The listing gives 19.3 inches long by 11.8 wide by 18.9 tall, and the baseplate is 19.2 by 11.8, so the base is essentially the entire footprint. On a bedroom floor that is about the space of a boot tray. It still has to go somewhere, and that somewhere has to be on the route your cat already walks every night. Ours is on the path between the door and the pillows, which is why it got used at all.

How It Went Together

The box weighs a bit over eleven pounds, so I carried it up the stairs myself without asking Ray for help. Ray does the drilling in this house and I do the reading of the instructions, and this was one of the few things we have bought for the cats that needed no drilling at all. The mounting type is floor mount. No brackets, no studs, no fresh holes in the plaster in the old half of the house.

The manual came in the box and it was enough. The parts are three levels, the cave, and the scratching posts, and the order is not complicated: the baseplate, then the cave body, then the steps going up. I had it standing in one sitting, on one knee on the bedroom floor, with the rice going in the kitchen. The only thing I did twice was the top level, because I had it facing the wrong way for the bed.

Both cats supervised. June was in the middle of it before I had the last piece on, which tells you something about how open the structure is. Biscuit watched from the doorway with the expression of a cat who has been sold something before.

The one thing I would tell a friend is to check the height before you commit to a spot. The top level sits at 18.9 inches, which in our room is very close to the height of the cedar chest lid. That is not an accident, and it is not adjustable. Without that intermediate surface the climb from floor to quilt would not have been shortened enough to be worth the floor space, and no amount of sliding the thing around the room would have changed it.

Three levels across 18.9 inches, a cave at 12.9 by 10.8, and a baseplate that covers the whole footprint. None of those numbers are exciting. All of them are the reason Biscuit uses it every night.

The Cave, and Who Actually Sleeps In It

The cave measures 12.9 by 10.8 inches. The listing calls it a condo for a large cat, and I want to be straight with you about how that has gone here. June sleeps in it. She is eight pounds, she fits with room to spare, and she has taken to it the way she takes to any small enclosed thing in this house.

Biscuit is fourteen pounds. He has been in twice that I have seen, both times turned himself around and backed out, and now he steps past the opening without slowing down. Your cat may be different. Mine is a broad, lazy lap cat who would rather lie flat on something wide than fold himself into a box, and I am not going to pretend that a cave which suits June automatically suits a cat his size.

The cave earns its place even so. It gives the base of the thing some visual weight, so it reads as a piece of furniture in the corner rather than a ramp somebody leaned against a chest. It also gave June a reason to be interested in the stairs before Biscuit ever used them. She was the one who proved it would hold a cat.

Where It Sits, and Why That Is Half of This Review

Ours stands on the wood floor in the old part of the house, pushed against the cedar chest, at the foot of the bed. It does not move when Biscuit climbs. At just over eleven pounds with the full footprint as a base, it is not going anywhere on a flat floor, and I have not once had to straighten it in the weeks since it went in.

The honest flip side is that floor mount means it holds itself up and nothing else holds it. There is no strap to a wall stud, the way Ray strapped the top section of the tall cat tree in the den. On our floor that has been a non-issue. In a house with a slick floor, or at the top of an actual staircase, I would think harder about the spot, and the listing recommends indoor use for a reason.

We did have one moment in the second week when June came off the top step at a run and the whole set shifted maybe half an inch on the wood. It settled. I put it back against the chest and it has not moved since. That is the most exciting thing that has happened with it, which is exactly what I want from a piece of furniture in a bedroom.

The Scratching Posts Are Short, and That Is Not a Complaint

The scratching posts on this set are listed at 6 to 7 inches high, and the listing says that height suits older cats or a heavier cat on the way up and down. June uses them in passing, a swipe on her way onto the second level, and then she goes and does her real damage on the tall post in the front room.

If you already have a full height scratching post, the posts on the Aechonow do not replace it. Treat them as a bonus for a cat who is already walking up the steps, not as the reason to buy the steps.

A Month In

The routine now is that Biscuit goes up on his own somewhere between the ten o'clock news and bedtime. He does not wait to be carried, he does not sit at the edge of the bed working himself up to a jump, and he does not need me standing there. That is the whole outcome I was after, and I am not going to dress it up as anything more than that.

June's routine is different and slightly insulting to the purpose of the purchase. She runs up the steps at speed, goes over the chest, and launches herself onto the quilt from the top of the chest rather than using the stairs as intended. The stairs are, for her, a running start.

Nothing has loosened. The levels are all still where they went in, the posts have not rotated, and the cave has not separated from the base. For a floor object that two cats use daily, that is the report I would want from someone else before I bought one.

Things I Would Change

If I could change one thing it would be an optional fourth level, or simply a taller top step. As it stands the set only works in a room where something is already waiting at the top, and that is a real limit on where you can put it. A version that topped out a few inches higher would suit more bedrooms, including the other one in this house.

I would also like the cave opening a size up, so a big cat could at least turn around in it. Fourteen pounds is not an unusual weight for a nine-year-old tom, and the listing does describe it as a condo for a large cat. June would not mind the extra room either.

The third thing is not a fault, exactly. It is a floor object in a bedroom, and it looks like a floor object in a bedroom. If you are the sort of person who wants the cat furniture to disappear into the room, this is not that. It is honest furniture, and it sits where you can see it.

Who This Is For

A cat who has started to hesitate, a bed or a sofa that is one short hop out of comfortable reach, and a spot to put the stairs where the top level lands on something solid. That is the whole fit. Whether your cat is older, heavier, or simply a young climber who likes being high up, the stairs do the same job. For us it was Biscuit at nine, on the advice of our own vet, and the difference in our bedtime is that there is no longer a pause at the edge of the mattress.

It also suits a house where you cannot or will not drill. Ours is a two-story farmhouse with plaster in the old half, and anything that does not put holes in those walls gets a fair hearing in this house. The Aechonow got one because it needed nothing but floor.

It suits a two-cat household too, though not in the way the listing suggests. The steps went to Biscuit. The cave went to June. Nobody negotiated.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your cat is jumping onto something much taller than 18.9 inches with nothing in between. The stairs cannot shorten a leap on their own. They can only shorten it if you give them a landing place, and if you cannot, this will sit in the corner while your cat keeps doing what he has always done.

Skip it if you have a very large cat and you are buying it for the cave rather than the steps. Picture your cat next to a 12.9 by 10.8 opening and be honest with yourself. And skip it if you need something that attaches to a wall, or that will sit safely on a slick floor at the top of a staircase. The mounting is floor only.

Most of all, skip it if you are looking for a fix. These are steps. They make a climb easier in our house, and that is the whole of what I can tell you they do. Anything about joints, weight or stiffness is a conversation for your own vet, not for a review written by a science teacher with two cats and a cedar chest.