Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I loved a certain cat tree that I could buy from Wally World for $40. It had a strong spring mechanism that kept the tree firmly in place from floor to ceiling. Then with the last one I bought of these, I found they are now being made with lower quality carpeting. The cats tore it up pretty quickly. So I looked and found this Trixie Santander. I loved that it would also reach the ceiling like the prior ABC cat tree did. And the Trixie had nice sisal wrapped posts for them to scratch on (instead of faux fur) like my other Armarkat tree has.The sisal posts really hold up well. So I decided to give this a try. It was easy to put together, but structurally it has a lot of cardboard in it; the box is faux fur covered cardboard and so are the sisal covered tubes. The hardware screws to connect the shelves and posts are also not the same heft as the ABC or Armarkat cat trees. So assembly went along easily until I got to the point of attaching it to the ceiling. It does NOT have the spring loaded foot that provides the resistance against the ceiling and keeps the tree stable. It relies on a threaded rod to be screwed down into the top post and kept at the right level with a wing nut. Then once you lift the tree to the ceiling, you unscrew the threaded rod to force the top padded piece against the ceiling. The problem is, the tree falls unless it's tight enough to the ceiling. If you make it tighter to keep it from falling, the tree gets a bend in the middle under the pressure. And the pressure also causes the box to misshapen. I thought I had it set tightly enough to keep it from falling, which it did a few times, but not too tight for it to crush the box. But the next night with just one cat climbing up it quickly, it snapped in half. I think it would have been a good product had they put heftier bolts in between the sections and used heftier melamine and PVC instead of cardboard. But the key thing is this tree needs that spring loaded foot providing resistance at the ceiling. It might work better if you have a higher than 8' ceiling and can make a better adjustment of that wing nut to keep the threaded rod firm against the ceiling, but I doubt it.