to want to cry on hearing my neighbour is going to get another cat..

[Justonemorecardi]

My neighbour had two cats until the summer when they moved out for 3 months while their house was renovated. They came back daily to feed them but one went missing in the trauma of it all and never came back.

The other cat comes for its daily poo in my garden and I've been out gardening this weekend and there is a whole winters worth of poo in my borders and under our kitchen staircase (external spiral thing with plants underneath) - its disgusting.

Last year I told her what was happening and she just listened but said she didn't know what to do about it and her husband just stood their pretending to vomit.

I've just heard they're planning to buy another cat to replace the missing one - I want to cry. Why can't they train the cats to go in a litter tray? Surely if you live in a city its obvious it has to poo in someone's garden, so its antisocial and selfish to not train it?

I can vouch for the Silent Roar clarkson mentioned - it worked a treat for us. I would mention it to the neighbor though, just be direct and say that as it is already a problem for you, would she buy the product for you to use in your garden. Also a plant that deters cats is called 'Cat Shoo' and you can buy plugs from online nurseries - not sure how well it works though. Or you can get strips of spikes of ebay quite cheaply, plastic or metal, if suitable for your fence/walls.

I hope you're joking shitehawke! How cruel.

It's so irritating though! I know that you can't train cats but cat shit on my lawn really pisses me off!

The reason that I don't have animals is simply because I hate animal poo and I hate picking it up. The neighbours across the road have a cat and it's always fucking shitting on my garden!

They go out to work all day leaving it shut out in the rain. Every time I open my bloody front door it's there at my door, miaowing to come in! The amount of times it's scarpered in when I've opened the door to visitors, it really annoys me!

I don't have a cat. I don't want a cat but yet I still have this bloody thing pestering me every time I step out the front door AND I still have to pick up it's shit! well DH picks it up

So you care but still chose to get 5 pets that you know will shit in your neighbours gardens? I don't think you care very much.

you could ask your dude to take a whizz in the most affected parts.. i've yet been able convince my husband but apparently it works pretty good.

or just chuck it back into her garden.. that really would make me feel better. Or chuck a load of catnip or something into her garden I think I remember someone on here saying to make you feel better.

Please don't listen to the doily above saying poison them.. it's a horrible painful death

Just a thought .... despite all these cats in my road, my own and loads more, I've probably only had cat poo on the grass once or twice in several years. IME most cats don't usually like to poo in an exposed area because they feel vulnerable. What we do get though is lots of hedgehog poo which is a similar size but far more blackish ..... so it might be that that those of you with it on the lawn are getting ??

Shite is just trying to start a fight - ignore it/her/him..whatever it is!

Check this out, it's american but there seem to be some eco-friendly solutions. Ideally your neighbours would pay for any solutions to the problem, but I can understand if you don't want to confront them about it. landscaping.about.com/od/pestcontrol/a/cat_repellents.htm
PS just moved into a rented house and the cats use our front garden as a toilet so your post coincided with me looking up solutions.

Sorry that turned into a bit of a sweary rant .

I guess that if people didn't have cats then they'd be feral and we'd still have the same problem anyway.

We live near a big hill and I just wish that neighbours cat would use that as his toilet instead!

I dont see why cat owners think I should spend my time and money preventing their pet shitting on my lawn. I won't. I will however, stop that filth....one way or another!

• not our cats, mysterious other cats - it's the street's cat loo

I'm a big fan of pointy sticks. I use rose prunings. You need to stick them in the ground at 6 inch intervals at various angles to make pooing there too much faff and potentially prickly. Keep it up for long enough, the cat will find somewhere else to shit. I don't have this problem in my back garden as I have two dogs, but did have an issue at my old house. My neighbour's cats crapped on my front lawn. My neighbour was lovely, though, and would regularly poo pick my front garden. The thorny sticks stopped the flower bed assaults. Not all cats have heard they're supposed to bury their shit, it seems. Cat school is letting us all down :( I also used the plastic spikey strips on my fences to stop the little buggers coming in and stalking my chickens. Cats are all about comfort, so make something even vaguely unpleasant and they can't be arsed.

I honestly never knew cat poo even existed as a problem until MN. You live and learn...

Yes Havant I care .... and that's borne out by my approach towards my neighbours to deal with the issue, and the steps I take to prevent it as much as possible. Don't really give a stuff about your opinion however .... it's my neighbours opinions which are important and to a house, they have all been appreciative of my stance and are lovely.

As I said in any case my house is literally two steps away from countryside and ploughed fields which is why I have my pets. In an urban environment I wouldn't have as many.

I've seen cats crap in a hole in the ground, but have also seen them go in the middle of the lawn too - so I reckon it depends on the cat in question! I'm still not sure whether the crap on my lawn is from cats or some other creature, but I just clear it up and move on. It's not the nicest job in the world, but it doesn't play on my mind either.

Our neighbour used to throw cat poo into our garden (he reckons it comes from our cats - it may do, but there are many other cats in the street - including 3 more black ones that look exactly like ours!) - right where our disabled child would stand. The cats have a tray and are in at night. One always uses the tray, the other will use it sometimes but prefers to go outside.

I offered to pick up the poo. He didn't want that. I offered to buy him lion poo, give him citrus, or buy him the cat scarey object of his choice. He didn't want that. I suggested if he moved the poo under the fence I could pick it up and dispose of it. He didn't want that. He just wanted to throw poo over the garden onto the decking and railings so it would go over our children - particularly our disabled child as he doesn't understand to check for poo first.

Unsurprisingly neighbourly relations are not the best they've ever been.

Try putting citrus down. Cats are quite habitual so if you can break the habit they'll find someone else's garden.

I would get one of those hose pipes on a motions sensor so that as soon as the cat comes in your garden it gets squirted with water. It will soon realise that your garden is your territory, not it's own. I scare all the cats that come in our garden - they start to stay away.

And I would scoop up any crap and throw it over the fence.

"I honestly never knew cat poo even existed as a problem until MN. You live and learn..."

I know! We've just moved and never had much of a problem at our old house. Here it's every day!

It's definitely cats too or it's a big bloody hedgehog (although its probably the wrong colour for a hedgehog). Unless it's a dog but it would have to be a very small dog and the only ones I've seen around here are big ones.

(I wouldn't throw cat shit over a fence on to anywhere children would be likely to be, though)

If it's in the middle of a lawn or on top of beds and very smelly it's more likely to be fox scat some images for the not squeamish. Cats are more likely to bury theirs - the pea stick suggestion is a good one, if you grow a ground cover plant such as heuchera and have short, sharp sticks all the way through it - then the foliage will hide the sticks but they will deter any cats. They like bare ground.

Sorry you've got this problem OP. I have a much-adored kitten and although she is an outdoor cat, she comes in to use the litter tray (both 1 & 2). She holds it til she gets indoors so she can delight us all with the fragrance but I'm reasonably sure that at least she's not going in other people's gardens.

The only thing I can suggest is to put out an pot of Vicks (or similar) under the stairs where the cat usually goes... cats hate the smell so should avoid the area. Obviously make sure it (or anything else) can't get into the jar to eat the Vicks, you don't want to actually poison it!

Also, this will probably only last so long, and it will probably find somewhere else to go so it's not a great solution... Good luck though.

Catsmother is it possible that the reason why you don't find much cat poo because your own cats don't like to go in "their area" and other cats won't because you have cats and it's another cat's territory? I don't know much about cats so I don't know if that's how they think.

Offering to pick it up doesn't make it safe for children to play in their own gardens or pleasant for gardeners to find in their flower beds. Having a pet that cannot be trained to poo at home and is allowed to roam freely is something you'd have to be pretty selfish to consider.