renting a furnished apartment with 2 spoiled buns..

[lwayne]

 We (SO and I) are renting a furnished basement 1bdrm apartment for the summer (our stuff is all in storage so we didn’t have to move it twice).  Under the lease, I have to keep the bunnies in a pen when unsupervised. (They got a bit spoiled before, since they had free reign in a room all to themselves and access to the rest of our house when we were home.)  Below are pictures of their current pen set up in our rented apartment.

The problem is that this furniture is not ours and I’m super paranoid about letting them out of this pen set up.  I’m mainly concerned about the couch.  On the other side of the living room is a dining area with wooden table/chairs and then the small galley-style kitchen with wooden cupboards that I also don’t want them nibbling on.  

Any suggestions on how I can let them out of the pen this summer?  Or I could try to make the pen bigger?  

Opening the pen up to the wall by the glass table would give them about a 5×13 area (say the pen is about 4×7).  Would that be enough space for their daily exercise? 

[mocha200]

For the couch when they are out to play could you rap the xpen around it. Then for the table and chairs maybe taping plastic on the legs. Then either block of the kitchen or spray bitter apple spray on the cupboards to make then not chew it.

[mocha200]

Also extending the pen a little just for when you are not home may be nice as they are used to a whole room. About rapping the legs with plastic I would do several layers and then tape it all the way around so they can’t chew it and so the tape doesn’t touch the wood and ruin it.

[lwayne]

Blah, Leo already stuck his nose through the xpen and took a bite out of the only teeny section of trim not covered by cardboard . I’m going to have to find a ton of cardboard and most likely get another xpen.  I’m not sure how to cover the doorway trim?  I guess it will be a few more days before I can let them out or give them more space.  I have already extended the xpen as large as it will go, so they have a little more room than in the pictures.

[mocha200]

what about these to protect the corners on your walls? I am pretty sure these ones dont screw on: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003KILYI6

for the trim you could get a large peice of low pill
carpet and buy it 4 inches larger on all sides so you can fold the edges up above the trim. You would have to cut the corners out though. you could cover your whole floor with the carpet or just the part where thier pen is. you could also buy untreated wood to go around your whole trim. Cardboard works to as long as you whatch carefully and know when to replace it before they chew it.

I also wonder if this anti cat scratch tape would work for bunnies not chewing. just a thought: http://m.petsmart.com/mt/www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11465513&mr:trackingCode=C857AFDD-EADE-E011-8116-001517B1882A&mr:referralID=NA&utm_source=googleproduct&utm_campaign=5166042&ved=0CGcQgwgwAA&ei=DD7ST9HXK8GC2AWpufi6Dw&utm_medium=cse&sa=X

Also bitter apple spray or perfume may help if you spray it on trim. also the corner protectors posted above might work on door frames. I hope this helps. This post might be hard to read because I wrote this on my iPod

[lwayne]

Mocha, I would get those if it was going to be a little more permanent.  I’m trying to be minimalist since this is a temporary (less than 3 months) location.  

I put up some cardboard around the walls and tried expanding their area quite a bit:

Is this enough space for their play time? I think when S.O. is home, I’ll have to have it the way was in the first post since it is annoying to hop over the pen to get to the bedroom (where the gate is).  I also need to get more cardboard to put around the door way (where those plastic blue things are).  

Or do I have to buy another xpen? If I do, I could expand it a little more:

I would want to use the current xpen to wrap around the couch and end table (or move it) and then have the new xpen across the bottom of this picture. (And wrap the legs of the coffee table up, although Arduina likes to jump and its glass..).  I don’t really want to have to buy another xpen though, since I’m also on a jobless budget right now. So I hope this is ok for the next few months?

[lwayne]

I’d rather spend the money on bunny toys than another xpen .

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