My cat is obsessed with my girlfriends nightstand, there is always some sort of "toy" (hair ties, straws and small stuff like that.) for him to steal. He only seems to mess with it when we are in the room with him, if we are gone he might go in the bedroom to sleep in the window, but nothing is ever out of place. If we are in bed that's when he likes to mess with it.

I have tried giving his tail or leg a little tug to get his attention, that worked at first, but now he just pulls against it.

We have tried spraying him with water, but now he acts like it's a game and he gets hyper when he gets sprayed.

If can reach him the most effective way to get him to stop is to give his butt a little shove off the bed, but he always eventually comes back. And this has back fired once when he scratched my gf as he lost his balance.

Hissing at him has mixed results, at one point he acted like it was a game.

Yesterday it came to a head. He started his normal shit and slowly made his way to the night stand. I couldn't find my spray bottle so I flipped a pillow that was next to him to scoot him away from it, but I guess it scared him and he destroyed her nightstand. There was nothing left on it, he knocked over a small wicker shelf that had some ceramics on it which shattered, books and her mug went flying and I chased him out of the room so I could asses the damage. Once I saw how bad it was I got pissed and went out hissing at him with reckless abandon, I wanted him to know how pissed I was at him and didn't mind looking like crazy person to do it. He hid from us the rest of the night and walked on egg shells until we went to bed.

I was hoping he would put two and two together and not fuck with the nightstand anymore, but at 4 this morning he snuck up while we were asleep and tried to steal a necklace that was on the shelf. Again I chased him out of the room hissing and locked him out. This morning he was waiting for me when I came out of the bathroom like nothing happened and I gave him a small growl to let him know I wasn't happy with him and he hid under the table.

I don't want to be mean to him, I just don't know what to do at this point. I don't want to lock him out of the room since we are in a relatively small apartment and taking away a whole room, especially one that he feels safe in when company comes over, feels mean but I'm at the point where I don't know what else to do.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

TLDR: My cats a dick who loves my GF's nightstand. He broke a bunch of stuff on it and I hissed at him putting the fear of God in him, but he still fucks with it. Please help.