A cat scratching properly stands on its back legs and pulls down through the full length of its body. Anything shorter than that reach gets used a couple of times and then abandoned in favour of the door frame, which is the right height by accident. One tall post with a wide base is often all that is needed, and it takes up rather less room than a tower nobody climbs.

The post is wrapped in natural sisal from top to bottom and finished in a bright colour rather than the usual beige, with a soft round perch on top for the cat who wants to sit down afterwards. The square base is deliberately wider than it strictly needs to be, and that is the point: a post that rocks under a hard pull teaches a cat the post is unreliable, and they go back to the sofa arm.

• Single sisal-wrapped post
• Soft round perch on top
• Wide square base for stability
• Bright colour finish
• Wrapped along the full length for a proper stretch
• One size, one option

About the copy you may have seen. That is a different product. What this is, is one post, one perch and one base, which is a perfectly good thing to buy but is not a cat tree.

Who it's for: One cat, one problem, that problem being the furniture, in a home with no space or appetite for a full climbing frame.