To want the cats to stay out of my house!

[Nicnak2223]

Not my cats I may add.

Lovely summer day in the garden with ds, come in put son to bed cook and eat dinner, hear a bang in the kitchen - a cat stealing food from the side. Having come though the conservatory and into the kitchen!

Last week same cat climbed in my upstairs window (over conservatory roof) and pulled bread off the kitchen side.

Both of these events have happened atleast 10 times each...

What can I do to keep other people's cats outside my house!

[Redactio]

Give them a good talking to.
Tell them that they are bad cats, and then they will stay away forever.

[Nicnak2223]

redactio I obviously need to learn the bad cat speech!

[gamerchick]

Cover your windows so they can't get through?

[Amelie10]

Blast them with water when you see them. Hate bloody cats.

[Redactio]

Niknac
I love cats, but i fully understand what a PITA they can be. Good luck with your mission to keep them away.

[Nicnak2223]

I don't know the owners and I don't know what they could do, I get that cats are out side animals. I just want to be able to keep a door or window open without a cat popping in!

[PersianCatLady]

I can't believe how brave these random cats appear to be.

I love cats and I often try to stroke my neighbours' cats (I have just realised how weird this sounds) and some of them took a good couple of years before they would let me anywhere near them.

[toolonglurking]

I once woke up in the middle of the night to find a cat settling itself for a snooze on my feet. I did not have a cat. I got such a fright I sat up and smacked the cat off my feet.
In my half-asleep state I think I hit it quite hard because it landed on the floor and didn't move
Thankfully a couple of seconds later it leapt straight out the window, never to be seen again.
Although it seemed to work for me, I would not recommend punching the cat, I felt awful about it for days!

[Firsttimer82]

Throw water on it and hiss as it as loud as you can....

[Ohbehave1]

Coolioandthegang. "Have them removed"? What exactly is meant by that? You can't just go around "Removing" cats because you don't like them.

They are cats. How do you control them. They are not like dogs. Now if your neighbours dog kept coming in, stealing your food and shitting on your carpet I guess you would have more of a claim.

I don't think it is nice btw, but it isn't like you can make an animal like a cat do something it doesn't want to.

[CoolioAndTheGang]

What exactly is meant by that?
Presumably removed to an animal shelter or pound? We have allergies to animal hair, cats are extremely dangerous to pregnant women's unborn babies and are pretty unhygienic in general outdoors. We don't have cats and we don't want cats so why would you expect us or people with similar health concerns to allow stray animals to roam around their property without removing the problem. Most cats are microchipped so I'm sure the owners can be found/located. I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter what pets you have, you need to be a responsible pet owner, likewise with teaching your children how to be a responsible pet owner. It's not personal towards any particular animal and to be fair most animal lovers are responsible owners. It's a bit entitled to think the op is being unreasonable and that it's the op's responsibility to keep a stray animal from roaming around her home and eating her food. I don't think it's unreasonable to want the problem resolved quickly and the cat's owner should do what needs to be done so it never happens again (once they find them)

[RoystonVaseySmegHead]

Toy rubber snakes on windowsills/ wherever they're coming in the house, worked for nearly 20 years for our neighbors, and fill a squirt bottle (like kitchen cleaner ones) with cold water and keep it near you so if you're in the garden or see one in the garden you can squirt it and hiss at it.. You can get cat repellent though, they sell it at our local quality save cheap as chips, no guarantee it'll work or how to use it as I love cats so don't bother. 😁

[lalalalyra]

Put pepper or something citrus smelling on the window that they climb in through.

[Ohbehave1]

So what you are saying Coolio is that the cat owner should either keep their cat indoors, follow it around, or get rid of it.

I understand the point about allergies etc, but to suggest someone is irresponsible because their cats wander and potentially enter other properties is not really fair.

I guess what you are really saying is that cats shouldn't be kept as pets as they are not controllable in the way that dogs are.

Btw. It's easy for these to come across as arsey-not meant in that way at all

[SupermanStoleMyPants]

I regularly have cat friends coming over. If their owner (next door) shuts their kitchen windows they come in mine instead. Mind I quite love them, I don't feed them but have water out incase they are thirsty. Ones one the sofa next to me at the moment chilling out.

[Nicnak2223]

I will try pepper or citrus a go thank you,

superman thats really nice that you want to entertain other peoples pets.

ohbehave I won't be trying to get rid of anyones pets, I have no issue with cats outside just the ones that venture in to my house.

[CoolioAndTheGang]

I don't mean to offend and I'm not being arsey. I think it goes a long way if a cat owner apologises and tries to keep their cat on their own property. Whatever about letting your cat roam, it is not acceptable to think your cat going into someone else's home and eating their food is someone else's problem. We don't have cats and luckily none of our neighbours have cats so it's not a problem round our way.

[Nicnak2223]

coolio where do you live, can I move there?

[Floralnomad]

You could always borrow a dog for a few days / few hours a day from a friend who has one , any cat who risked entering my house would be very brave and probably very stupid , I doubt it would be leaving in one piece .

[MyKidsHaveTakenMySanity]

My fur baby goes nuts being stuck indoors 24/7 (she was born a feral farm cat) and now we have moved from a farm to a street she doesn't know anything about where she is allowed or not. My neighbour has found her popping into their house to say hello (she won't steal food though as she won't eat anything that isn't cat food specifically and in her own bowl.) once or twice.
I've told them it's probably best to just loudly shoo/chase her out or even throw water on her. They have a terrier who would gladly eat my cat -especially as she likes to antagonise the poor pooch-
If you chase the little buggers out they will soon become too scared to venture back in. Good luck

[SkyLucy]

I have the same issue. I like animals very much, but it drives me nuts that I can't open the back door/windows without a particular cat dashing straight in! I hate it because a) I'm pregnant and don't really want to be wrestling cats out of my home b) I keep guinea pigs upstairs, and the bloody cat goes straight for them! It can't get into their cage but it likes to taunt them. We now keep their door closed, and DH has taken to chucking glasses of water at the cat whenever it shows its cheeky face!

I do get cross that there's no other pet that can/does wander unsolicited in other people's property, but there's bugger all you can really do about it.

[CoolioAndTheGang]

Nicnak2223 I live in Ireland, if you're in UK, stay put, you get more sunshine there . We had a heatwave last week(promised 27 degrees) but we got no sunshine, just overcast and humid 21 degrees
To clarify, there are cats here but none in our neighborhood, luckily for us because we don't have your problem and luckily for the cats because we live near two very busy roads where nobody abides the speed limit

[Ohbehave1]

Coolio. I meant I didn't mean my post to sound arsey

And I don't think that it is not the owners problem - I just don't understand what you expect the owner to do other than keep the cat indoors

[CoolioAndTheGang]

Ohbehave1 you didn't sound arsey, I think I just felt a bit too cross on the op's behalf I don't think there is much that anyone can do, maybe a tracking colar? If it happens, pop around with a packet of chocolate buscuits and apologise