Edit: Replaced the cat tax with a still image.

So this is a tiny and very mild malicious compliance on both mine and a neighbour’s part. Might be boring for not-cat-owners (or most people) to read.

Me and my neighbour have cats, and we both live in condominiums some floors above ground level. To keep our cats safe, we both had installed balcony cat nets that covered the whole of the open part of the balcony so that our cats can’t fall down and get injured. When the condo’s board (much like an HOA) members changed to a majority of retired older people, we got threatening notices demanding that we remove our nets as they were against the rules. The nets were apparently considered ugly eyesores and “as blights upon the community”.

So we perused the rules, and discovered that the rules indeed specified that any nets spanning the balcony must have the board’s permission (which they would not grant), and we’re sadly not allowed to glaze the balconies to close them. However, trellises and privacy screens were ok. So my neighbour inquired about clarifications of the rules and got the following official responses: -Any trellis material (even metal wire) is allowed, as long as it is not classed as a net and does not cover more than 50% of the open parts of the balcony -Any kind of mesh within the trellis, such as fabric, privacy screens, wire or fake/real climbing vegetation is allowed.

After double checking with the municipality’s building permit office to see if hardware cloth type meshes would qualify as a trellis and not as nets, my neighbour put up a hardware cloth that covered half the open space and reinforced it with chicken wire. We put up a wooden trellis that covered half the open space, and reinforced it with wire to cover the gaps.

Now, apparently the combo of hardware cloth and chicken wire on my neighbours balcony led to rust fairly quickly just over the spring, it doesn’t look pretty. The board members were seething about the even worse eye-sore, but we were in the clear rule-wise. They gave us specific official permits from the board to put up the plastic cat net again, but he has dug his heels in about the rusty mesh combo. He even got balcony flower boxes made of corten steel, and clad his “trellis” with clear plastic to annoy them further.

I don’t mind, our cats are safe with the current solution. But seeing the board members seethe every time they pass by the yard and see our balconies feels quite satisfying.

Cat tax provided.