Im scared of cats and now there's one in my garden permanently!!

[90sWasAmazing]

Im scared of cats, I actually have a huge phobia. Luckily I haven't had to deal with any where I live but a neighbour at the end of the road has one and it keeps appearing in my garden. It was on my windowsill. It's freaking me out.
How can i get it to move on? It runs away bit then 5 mins later its back.
I sprayed some water from a spray bottle which it ran but then came back sitting by the front door. Any suggestions? Im really nervous of it and am scared to go out and dreading coming back!
I dont have any food out or anything, why is it even here?

I love cats, and have witnessed many years of my disloyal feline friends sucking up to visitors who do not have any interest in them

No need for washing liquid??!!! They will lick it and could causes stomach issues. Water alone will be fine

So a couple of birds don’t matter. They matter to me!
Yes I know some larger birds sometimes kill smaller birds but that doesn’t make it OK to introduce a pet to the situation. This is not nature. Cats are domesticated animals.

I just said that… madness

There shouldn't be any soap in it. Are you willing to pay the vet bills if the soap goes into the cat's eyes, becomes sick from licking it off their fur or is allergic to soap? I doubt it.
There is absolutely nothing I can do about cats attacking birds. That unfortunately is nature. What you are doing isn't.

Oh poor you, I’m a massive cat fan, but if I need to shoo away cats that are annoying my gorgeous little feline, I shake a carrier bag at them and shout scat. I think you can also buy cat deterrents but I don’t know if they work.

Cats are domesticated animals. It is not nature. Keep your cats in your own garden.

You’re not being unreasonable - a phobia is a phobia. Some of those devices that emit a high pitched sound actually do work to some degree, so you might consider one of those but cats are super sneaky, which is not helpful for you, I know. PS. I have met other people who have cat phobia and they were super scared.

Of course all birds matter! I love birds, otherwise I wouldn't feed them.

But the reality is I live in an area with multiple cats and I have a very large garden- at the back, front and side of my house. With bird feeders in all 3 parts of my garden. I can't spend my time patrolling my garden to chase cats away. And I defend the cats right to wander about the area.
It's a fact of life that birds are the natural prey of not only cats but other animals. I do my best to help them by providing food and water for them and I will shoo a cat away when if I find it hiding in the shrubbery but that's the best I can do .

You have never heard about feral cat's then?
It's not a problem for me personally because my 2 cat's are indoor ones and always have been.
It really is nature for cat's to prey on birds. It's a predatory instinct.
Please don't spray chemicals on cats.

I have two cats .

Orange peel in the soil stops a cat digging , they don;t like orange .
It might stop them visiting .
Worth a try and non toxic

So my first cat was outside and was being attacked by a neighbour’s much larger male cat, I knew if I tried to pull him away I would get badly scratched so I got a saucepan with a wooden spoon & made lots of sudden noise, which terrified the male cat and he ran off, never to return to my garden again!!

Basically if a cat is hanging around and you don’t want it there, just make a loud noise right nearby to startle & alarm it, it should hopefully run away & stay away.
Thats probably more effective than spraying it with water as some contrary cats like water!

That reminds me of the clapping for the NHS during covid. Lots of people around here used pans etc.

I used to rattle metal plates together to scare the foxes when my guinea-pigs were in the garden.
It would work for cats .

I banged a metal spoon on a saucepan the other day and it just looked at me like I was mad🤣 I sprayed with water 3 times yesterday but came back, just realised that it hasn't today so hopefully he's fucked off somewhere else.
Thanks for everyone's suggestions and for not telling me to toughen up which is what I thought would happen. Ill continue with the water and try and get some orange oil before I move on to some of the other suggestions.

Use orange peel , they don't like the smell.
Orange oil might get onto their fur or paws and they'll ingest it .

I am very careful what I use on the kitchen floor in case mine lick their feet after walking across it

Exactly, as much as I hate birds getting killed it's a strong instinct in cats, they can't help it but spraying cats with fairy liquid is choosing to be cruel...

I hiss like a witch at them. They soon get the message.

Invest in a super soaker so you can reach if with the water spray from much further away. You won't need to do it forever, you are only needing to make your garden uncomfortable enough for the cat that they pick somewhere else as a default. And you want the cat to be nervous of the garden, not you personally, which is a perfect reason to stay as far from it as you can or even hide while spraying it.

A sprinkler can also work well as a stealth weapon.

Longer term, consider planting blackberries or really any sort of brambles on the border. Use any cuttings to reinforce the boundary elsewhere. Cats hate hate hate scratchy things - and bonus point, you get fresh blackberries.

Absolutely don’t do this!!!!

Someone (my mum!) did this to my cat and it made her very ill. If you don’t want a vet bill, don’t abuse someone else’s pet.

Totally get it. That's me with frogs / toads and grasshoppers. Me trying to get a toad out of the dogs wading pool creates hours of entertainment for the neighbours!

I'm in Australia. We have deadly snakes, huge strangling snakes (have had to shoo a few off the back steps and a couple of huge ones off the road so I didn't kill them), huge spiders and poisonous spiders. None of which are a drama. A small green tree frog and I'm a squealing wreck. A grasshopper and my grasshopper specific scream has the pets come running to rescue me LOL

Or sting if it gets in its eye! Use a water gun pistol with plain water.

Not saying she should do this, but I doubt she’d be held legally responsible for paying vet bills for a cat that came onto her property. But even if that’s the case, the cat won’t exactly tell on her anyway so they’d be none the wiser.

OP some cat repellent ideas but not to spray the cat directly. https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Homemade-Cat-Repellent