I have a 3-story ADU (yeah, it’s weird) with access to a forested area behind.

One day Seven of Nine might be eaten by a raccoon but I’ve seen the GoPro footage, she has a blast every day of her life. As a side-effect benefit, she doesn’t play games with me because her entire world is filled with games she can play herself. We still sleep curled up together though :)

cats hate stairs

I've had cats that love stairs. They'd play and slide down them on purpose.

Pretty sure cats love climbing things, and stairs are no different.

I lived in apartments for a long time then moved into a house. I thought my cat who had never seen stairs would take some adjusting. Nope, he look up them, wiggled his butt, then ran full tilt to the top. Ran full tilt down them too.

One of our cats has arthritis and before we got her treatment she didn’t like them, but she’s perfectly happy now.

so you probably never had cats that run up and down stairs 10 times at 6am.

Carpetedness may make a big difference in this case.