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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To chuck cat poo on my neighbours path

144 replies

Ahhhtetley · 14/05/2012 16:27

OK, I'm hoping this won't turn into a bun fight but I'm fuming at my neighbour.

We get on well, chat, help each other out and i've nothing against her cat.

But she's taken to keeping the litter tray outside so it's mostly full of water. Which means her cat has now taken to crapping in our garden. I've done the 'nice' thing and collected it and thrown it in her bin (in a bag I might add). I've spoken to her about sorting the litter tray our so it doesn't shit in my garden and her response was, 'it's not my fault that she prefers your garden' and then nothing happens. A couple of weeks later and several shovels full of shit I've asked her to come and remove the cat poo from my garden a couple of times a week following my 4 yr old DD and then my DH standing in said cat shit, and nothing has happened. I've asked her to do this on two separate occasions now and she's not bothered.

I've now just started to throw it on her path outside her front door! Am I being petty (yes probably) but i'm fed up with my garden stinking and shit being all over my flower beds, lawn and now my strawberry plants (which now stink of cat piss)

What else can I do?

OP posts:
MsKittyFane · 14/05/2012 18:45

Another one that doesn't want to clear up cat poo.
My neighbour ( with cats) once commented that her garden grass never had poo on it. Apparently the clever things buried it discreetly in the borders.
She was horrified when I told her that my garden was full of her cat's poo (I have no cats).
She was even more horrified when I told her we had sprayed repellent over our garden because we found it a problem.
Angry

cocolepew · 14/05/2012 18:58

Oooooh apparently snail poop is the same colour as their shells. Cool.

AcquaViolet · 14/05/2012 19:01

Those sonic cat deterrents only work for a while as cats soon get used to the noise. It's also worth knowing that children including teenagers can hear them, and apparently the noise is quite painful.

I think you're perfectly in your rights to chuck cat turds over your fence and onto her path if she can't be bothered to keep her cat lit tray useable. You're lucky your neighbour's cat does solid turds. My neighbour's cats do hideous tan-coloured, diarrhoea-y little Mr Whippies, often bloody in places, which stink to high heaven and are too sticky to fling into his garden. Otherwise I would. He has put a litter box in his garden for them to use after other neighbours complained, but he doesn't clean it out more than once every three weeks.

Glittertwins · 14/05/2012 19:15

If the cat is deaf, the sonic repellents don't work!

JosieZ · 14/05/2012 19:20

If you had a small garden with larchlap fencing you could try stapling a strip of chicken wire along the top of your side then bend it 90 degrees so it sticks about a foot into your garden horizontally. This would make it harder for cat to leave garden (assuming cat enters by jumping fence). So if cat gets stuck in garden leave it long enough to get anxious then move wire to let it escape but it should then choose somewhere easier to poo.

(Don't have a suitable garden so haven't tried this)

EnjoyResponsibly · 14/05/2012 19:20

Acquq that is a very sick cat.

complexnumber · 14/05/2012 19:25

'Speak to your local zoo'

What sort of talk is that? How many of us have a 'local zoo' that we could just stroll around to and ask if they might fill up a jug of lion pee. Or am I missing something?

smornintime · 14/05/2012 19:39

I have heard the super soaker theory before - with orange juice in. Apparently whatever you fill the gun with it's best if it's something they don't like the taste of, since they'll have to lick it off.

AKMD · 14/05/2012 20:00

I have trained 2yo DS to chase cats out of our back garden. He waves his fist at them and hisses, it's hilarious.

Failing a willing toddler, get a Scarecrow Water Jet Pack.

YANBU by the way but there are slyer things you could do.

Debeez · 14/05/2012 20:16

YANBU to want to throw it over the fence.

Also may I just applaud NicNocJnr.

I also have a cat, a dog, 2 snakes and a hamster. Cat shit is the worst. My cat, my job to clean it up. Just because a cat is treat differently by law on the whole roaming, wild animal front doesn't make it's poo more pleasant. I wouldn't leave my dog shit lying for people to step in ergo I won't leave cat poo. (He's litter trained. Not nice having a litter tray in the house but tough shit on me :o )

I wouldn't throw it over the fence though. Try the lion poo. If it doesn't work put some on her path "It's a cat! It must have preferred your garden!"

Fireandashes · 14/05/2012 20:48

I have two cats who are house cats - yes, it's a pain having to clean their litter trays every day but that's the choice I made when deciding to have cats.

Where we used to live, there were a lot of neighbourhood strays / 'latchkey' cats, a couple of whom started crapping in the back yard we shared with our downstairs neighbour. Imagine my displeasure when I found out that the downstairs neighbour was collecting it all up and dumping it in one of our flower planters because she had assumed it was our cats' shit! (She knew we had cats, despite them not going out, because we once popped a note through her door when we were going on holiday to tell her my friend would be staying to catsit so not to worry if she saw a strange woman ketting herself in and out of the flat). They are clever cats, but to my knowledge they had never mastered opening the window, balancing on the frame and crapping into the yard from a height of 20 feet...

HermioneE · 14/05/2012 20:51

YANBU (and I speak as a cat lover) but let's face it, chucking the cat poo on your neighbour's path is basically going to burn bridges with her for ever. If she gets pissed off and it escalates, next thing you know you're declaring a 'dispute' when you try to move house. It's worth keeping in with your neighbours.

I would buy her a covered litter tray (and later cat deterrents if that doesn't work) and tell her she should reimburse you. But I wouldn't insist if she flat out refused, because ultimately it's better to be on good terms with neighbours. They can make your life hell in all sorts of ways (as she's proving now).

Glittertwins · 14/05/2012 20:53

The super soaker isn't a theory, it works! We also use a plant sprayer on one of ours when she uses the window frames as a scratch post. All we have to do now is shake the bottle and she stops immediately.
Don't use anything really strong smelling though, it might be worse. Friends of my parents got fed up with the local feline population also destroying his bin bags in the days of non wheelie bins so he dumped a load of ammonia around the bin ( lab worker). Unfortunately it quite literally scared the crap out of the cats!!!

ShutUpMeg · 14/05/2012 20:54

Chuck it in her face and then squash it right in!! make sure you get some of it in her mouth and tell her that's what she gets!

usualsuspect · 14/05/2012 21:10

Its all about the dog and cat shit on MN just lately.

Harr1etJ0nes · 14/05/2012 21:42

There only seems to be one cat in our area & it either pops under the gooseberry bush ( what happened to not bear bottoms around spikes) or on top of my strawberry plants. I tried moving them as they were getting dug up all the time & now it poos on the new patch :(
It never bothers about dh empty dug flower bed .
It costs me a fortune in replacing plants.
Tried a sonic thing but it set off next doors dogs. Which still don't manage to scare the cat.
Tried scattering all sorts of stuff which hasn't worked. The water pistols work but I can't guard my strawberries all day.

pictish · 14/05/2012 22:05

Apologies to the poster with four cats earlier in the thread. I was horrible to you - I have reported my own post.
I was thinking how revolting cat shit is when I typed it, getting quite lyrical in my disgust...as you seemed unbothered by how your pet's poop may affect others.
I got carried away. I'm sorry.

Debeez · 14/05/2012 22:32

Pictish can I just say that's fairly big of you to apologise openly like that. AIBU does invite bunfights and the like and it's easy to get carried away then to say "Well it's just a forum so it doesn't matter."

Good on you.

toomuchmonthatendofthemoney · 14/05/2012 22:37

Pictish, you just said what many of us were thinking ......

Beaaware · 14/05/2012 22:39

Chuck a beefburger over works everytime

pictish · 14/05/2012 22:43

I could have said it a damn sight more pleasantly I think.

Dee03 · 14/05/2012 22:54

Thank you Pictish.
I could've worded my post better tbh.
I tend to keep my posts short as otherwise i would waffle on and bore you all to tears but maybe on this occasion i should have explained myself a bit better

I appreciate the apology Smile

Nevertooearlyforcake · 14/05/2012 23:04

MN has been a real eye opening to me on this topic - I've never heard anyone in RL complaining about cat shit so I was completely ignorant about this. I have a cat and a litter tray but the cat only seems to use it as a last resort. Am now thinking all my neighbours must quietly hate our guts.

bejeezus · 14/05/2012 23:07

i second using a water squirter

also one of those-high pitched noise emitting cat-scarers (the proper name might come to me in a minute- its not a noise humans can hear!) on the wall between your gardens-they really work.

Also, talk to your neighbour to check whether she regularly worms her cat, otherwise there is the risk that the cat poo carries toxoplasmosis. which is not at all good if you have a small child grubbing about

and a covered litter tray for her

I have a cat, we love it very much. It adopted us about 2 years ago. I would never have bought one, for this very reason. I would totally understand if my neighbour started depositing the poo in my garden (luckily she seems to do all her poo in ours anyway)

Morloth · 14/05/2012 23:17

I think if pet owners don't start taking responsibility for their own pets.

People who don't love pets are going to start doing it for them. Either through legal means or not so legal means.

There are no outdoor cats where I live, I assume this is because we back onto a national park and any cats in said national park will be shot if they are spotted by the rangers.

So people either keep their cats inside or don't have them. So much better than London in that respect.

No dog shit on the footpath/playing fields either, plenty of dogs, but no dog shit - how can that be?!

The English are weird about animals.