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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think local cat owners

239 replies

WoTmania · 14/02/2011 12:39

could make their own gardens more appealing for their cats so said cats don't come and poo in my vegetable garden and use their own instead?

It drives me up the wall. We end up have to put netting everywhere and sticks and upturned crtaes and still the poxy things manage to dig up everything and poo. Angry

So, AIBU

OP posts:
Vallhala · 16/02/2011 20:00

"Cats belong on farms where they can roam freely without restricting other people from using their own gardens." Hmm

Erm, roadtrain, cats would be on farms still, had man not come along and built on the farmland over the course of centuries!

Cats have been in existance a very long time and don't only "belong" in one place to convenience you. Man has far more to answer to than the cat when it comes to creating unpleasant environments and causing potential (and in the case of man, actual) danger.

Let those who are without sin cast the first stone and all that, yes? Or rather, those without sin would cast the first stone were it not for the fact that they tend to have paws. :o

roadtrain · 16/02/2011 20:09

Vallhala!!

My house is 15 years old and just out of town. It is on a housing estate where houses are close together. Once upon a time, it may have been farmland (who knows?) - but I can guarantee that the cats my neighbours own were obtained after these houses were built! These cats haven't existed for centuries - most of them were born in the last decade.

My DC's school is in a house that centuries ago, a rich family would have occupied. By your logic, their decendents could come and squat in the school Grin.

I am never going to be happy about spending money and time on cat deterrents, doing the filthy job of poo collecting and not being able to just open the back door and let my kids out into the garden. This is the fault of people who choose to own cats!

ClenchedBottom · 16/02/2011 20:10

I think some people simply do not understand the frustration that can build over a period of years and years of having other people's pets pooing in your garden!

Some of twee little comments on here make my toenails itch, sorry.

roadtrain · 16/02/2011 20:10

And don't go thinking I am a nasty mean old bitch Grin

I have FED someone's cat for them when they were on holiday!

DreamsInBinary · 16/02/2011 20:12

YADNBU

PinkWinged · 16/02/2011 20:17

You don't have to put up with it! Just keeping firing water pistols at it - the cats soon get the message and your kids will love the excuse to turn it on each other Grin.

MrsSparkle · 16/02/2011 20:18

Newwave what an absolutely vile person you are to "understand" why someone would murder a cat. Your post brought tears to my eyes thinking about my dds beloved cat and watching him die so cruely when there was nothing i could do to save him.

Cats don't poo like dogs do, so to speak. Cats dig little holes, poo in it, then dig over it. They also poo in dirt, not on your pathway so doubt very much that unless you were gardening, you would stand in it.

People in this world are so cruel. Lots of things a small nusense in this world but that doesn't give anyone the right to murder animals.

anonandlikeit · 16/02/2011 20:20

Why oh why do cat owners think it is acceptable to own an animal that they ahve no control over, can't control whose property it wanders on to & what mess it creates and leaves behind.
We would not accept it from any other animal, or person so why can cats shit wherever they like and the owners think its OK!

It's not the cats fault but why the hell own a cat unless you have acres of land for them shit on.

Vallhala · 16/02/2011 20:20

roadtrain, my logic is simply that you can't banish an animal to the outback just because you don't like it!

That and the fact that humankind is far more of a risk to a person's safety and wellbeing than cats (or cat shit) will ever be.

I've no doubt that the specific cats you're speaking of are cats of the 20th/21st century and not ghosts of a past feline world, but the species have been here for a fair old while. :o

Anyway, you knew darn well what I meant, ya beggar! :o

BaroqueAroundTheClock · 16/02/2011 20:21

how do you know it's not fox poo???

ClenchedBottom · 16/02/2011 20:22

"Cats don't poo like dogs do, so to speak. Cats dig little holes, poo in it, then dig over it. They also poo in dirt, not on your pathway so doubt very much that unless you were gardening, you would stand in it.

So what are you saying here? That it's fine to stand in someone else's cat's poo whilst gardening in one's own garden? That we're all imagining it when our children accidentally walk in someone else's cat's poo?

You've set my toenails off!

ClenchedBottom · 16/02/2011 20:23

Baroque - because our garden is fenced in all around (foxproof) and we are constantly having to chase cats out of it.

HelenBaaBaaBlackSheep · 16/02/2011 20:24

YANBU I like cats but I hate them shitting in my garden. There's a really lovely ginger one that comes in my garden but it knows that if I see it squatting the water bottle will come out!

I have lovely neighbours with a cat (which goes outside) and they have a litter tray in the house and have trained it to crap there from when it was a kitten. I thought they were mad at first as I had never lived in a town, but now see they are just very civilised!

MrsSparkle · 16/02/2011 20:29

With regards to people saying they can't let their kids outside without picking up cat poo, well unless you let your kids play all over your flower beds and the like, i very much doubt that is the case.

jollydiane · 16/02/2011 20:33

It is not possible to stop cats roaming around but on a practical note:

Lion poo - does it actually work?

roadtrain · 16/02/2011 20:37

MrsSparkle - I am very sorry for your loss so I am reluctant to argue with you, but I'll explain about my flower bed.

My garden is small/moderate. It is rectangular and all grass apart from the strip across the back which is a flowerbed. I don't let my kids play in the flowerbed, but when they play football, the ball goes in there. I have to shriek at them over and over when they approach the flowerbed to get the football to stop and let me do it because I don't want them stepping on the cat poo (which incidentally is just sprinkled in a fine peppering of soil, it isn't in a hole or covered) and I have to check the ball hasn't actually landed on the poo. Additionally, I would let them dig in the flower bed if it wasn't full of cat poo. But they aren't allowed to dig, in their own garden because of the cat poo (they are 2 and 4).

Also, the "flowerbed" also contain trees in my case - I remember hiding behind trees in my garden growing up etc and I cannot let my kids do that.

MrsSparkle · 16/02/2011 20:42

Ok then. When i was a kid, i played outdoors constantly and was always up trees, in bushes, running around on dirt. I never once stood in cat poo. My remaining cat, who is 10, goes in my garden. I know this because he has two little spots he goes in and i see him.

In my whole life i have never stood in cat poo nore have i ever met anyone who has moaned about cats or stepping in cat poo until mn. Odd.

ClenchedBottom · 16/02/2011 20:45

MrsSparkle - no my kids don't roam all over my flowerbeds, but I really don't see that that is the point!
A) Cats seem quite happy to poo on our lawn
B) Sometimes my kids might carefully walk through the flowerbeds etc to fetch a ball, water plants etc
C) It is our garden. Why would - or should - we find it ok to have other people's pet's poo in our flowerbeds anyway? - You say that as if to say, "Oh well it's only in your flowerbeds, that's ok then........"

ClenchedBottom · 16/02/2011 20:47

Well you obviously don't live near me then, or any of the other places that I've lived in for the past 40 years!

roadtrain · 16/02/2011 20:48

MrsSparkle - might it be that cats don't poo in your garden because you have your own cat?

I can promise you that the only flower bed I had in front/side of my house had to be turfed over because I couldn't stop the cat poo and it was right next to where my DCs needed to get out of the car.

jollydiane · 16/02/2011 20:50

We can debate this but cats don't know any better, so practical solutions seem to be the best way forward.

So about the Lion Poo. Does it work? What else actually works? Getting cross with the cat does not seem to solve anything.

MrsSparkle · 16/02/2011 20:53

Well cats are by nature, wild animals. You don't have any right to dictate a cat not going in your garden anymore you do any other animal or creature. It's nature. I don't particuly want bugs in my garden that eat my plants or slugs or snails or worms but they are nataural living things that are beyond my control.

Even if you stopped people having cats as pets, they wouldn't live happily ever after on farm somewhere. Have you ever met a feral cat? They are vishious and would still poo in your garden but are alot more dangerous to your kids, trust me.

I watched a program about what would happen if the human race died out. Cats were about one of the only living thing that would survive.

roadtrain · 16/02/2011 20:53

jollydiane - cats don't know any better but cat owners do - they shouldn't buy cats in the first place!

I have to say that most things suggested work for about 2 days. Then they have to be redone. It gets time consuming, expensive and almost as useless as just being cross with the cat. Haven't tried lion poo. Don't really want my toddlers in that either.

MrsSparkle · 16/02/2011 20:57

roadtrain like i said in my post, if you stopped letting people buy cats, they wouldn't die out. They would become wild, vishous cats that can be really dangerous to children. Not letting people buy cats is not going to solve your problem.

MrsSparkle · 16/02/2011 20:59

In fact you would end up with even more cats because if no one owned them, they wouldn't be neutered.