That’s interesting about females. She is super chewy, we stack cardboard boxes in her cage and she spends hours shredding them.
I think small holes would be a problem, but we could use cardboard boxes to block off the doorways and let her rush about in the hall, that sounds a good idea. Not sure that permanent hamster proofing would meet with approval in all areas, my husband is a reluctant hamster owner as it is! But that sounds a good idea, thank you. I can tape cardboard to the door frames and let her roam for a bit. I think she’d like that.
Are females generally more active and escapey then? Our previous hamster was male and was generally more sleepy and slow moving, also less chewing but he had big teeth problems so that could have been why.