Sunny Vs. The Furniture

Our beloved old kitty cat, Sunny, has taken up a new hobby. He loves to rip apart our new furniture. I have been lenient on him because, as we live on the third floor, he has been unable to go outside for the last year. For the first ten years of his life he was primarily an outdoor cat. He only came inside to eat and cuddle. So, I have been more acceptable of his icky behavior for a long time since he has had such a severe lifestyle change (who wouldn’t be a little weird, right?).

But, my days of understanding are near an ending. Our new couch is starting to get fuzzy in places it ought not to be fuzzy and out new (antique) armchair is his new target. I have looked up some sites with suggestions to remedy this. There are some keepers (rubbing some catnip on something they can claw), but mostly there are suggestions that need to be lost (trimming your cat’s claws?!?!? declawing?!?? putting an inflated balloon on whatever you don’t want them to claw at? huh?? do i really want big balloons taped to all my furniture?). Of course declawing is completely out of the question – I feel like that is one of the most inhumane things you could ever do to a cat. Until we move into the new house (he’ll be a free outdoorsman again) – we are going to have to be creative. Any suggestions?