Just over a week ago, we adopted two beautiful 8-year-old brothers. They lived with a senior citizen most of their lives, who had to give them up to a shelter, where they lived for a few months before coming to us.

To our knowledge, they've never been indoor-outdoor cats. But as they get more and more comfortable in our home, they get more and more curious about the outside!

We're now living in a hermetically sealed apartment. As with most Japanese apartments, we've got sliding glass doors to the outside of our 1st floor apartment, with very flimsy screens. Amazingly, Butter seems to be strong enough to push the door, because two nights ago we realized we hadn't locked the door and he'd gotten out onto the balcony! We've netted the balcony as the shelter required, and thank goodness.

The rest of the night, though, the two of them yoooowwwwled and scratched at the door. The night before I'd opened the living room window which has bars on it - not even for five minutes! The rest of the evening they spent prowling around and scratching the walls behind the TV, looking for the magic button which would open the window.

We're desperate to keep the cats indoors; five years ago one of our indoor-outdoor cats ran away within days of moving to this apartment, and the other disappeared a few months later. This is clearly NOT the neighborhood for them to be out in, and I doubt they feel at home enough to find their way back if they escape.

Any advice? Thanks in advance!

I've had this issue with some of my cats who were adopted as adults and had in the past obviously been indoor/outdoor.  In all cases, the "urge" to run outside went away with time.  After a certain point, they just were not interested any more.  They were content to sit in an open window and just watch the world go by.  But in some cases it took years.

What I have done is just to watch them extremely carefully, to make sure they didn't get out.  I have one recent arrival who is still a "door darter"--we are very vigilant with him.  We confine him elsewhere when expecting company who might not be careful with the doors, for example.

That cat has tried to push the sliding glass door to our deck, too, particularly at night.  I haven't found a good solution for him on this problem yet.  If I do, I'll let you know.

Your two boys may not perceive your apartment as "home" yet and may be trying to return to where they spent most of their lives.  It doesn't mean you haven't provided a good home--far from it---it's just that cats are creatures of territory and habit.

After awhile my cats have stopped trying to get out. But when they were in the trying phase, I had a sign on my door that said "Cats Stay In" so that all guests would know not to allow them to bolt out the door.
Without it, those smart little feline stinkers knew they could play an unsuspecting guest who didn't know the routine here.....

     If your sliding doors are like ours here, you can put a long piece of wood or pole in the track that keeps the door from opening.  There are also bars specifically made to secure sliding doors so that they cannot be opened.  These are suggested anyway to keep burglars from forcing open the sliding glass doors.

Thanks to everyone for their good ideas!

- I'm going to ask our local vet about microchipping here in Japan. Apparently, though, cat-catchers here don't always have the chip-reader, so we've got very clear addresses printed on the outside of their collars.

- We do have some kind of stinky cat-begone spray left over from our last cats; we can't stand it either, though! Citrus sounds like it might be a good alternative.

- Hmmm... years before they might lose their interest in going out? That's a long time... I lost a year off my life with Butter shooting out the door when the newspaper salesman came...

- I don't take it personally that they want to get out - I know they're slowly understanding that this is their home now. Their efforts to get out aren't constant - Butter's got his eye on the dining room door, though, and claws away at it while Stan looks disdainfully on... he's decided that the bedroom door's the magic exit.

- Thanks for letting me know about the previous thread on this topic - I knew there had to be one around here somewhere!

- I wish our screen problem was as simple as the mesh, but it's really the poor quality of the sliding screen door itself - you breathe on it and the whole thing falls off outward - timber! So the bar idea may not work... Maybe we'll have a lil' chat with our landlady.

An odd follow-up question: Both my parents asked me if I'd put butter on their paws! They seemed to think that if cats licked it off, then psychologically they would feel that this was their home. Has anyone else heard this superstition-sounding belief?