My cats and cat poo in neighbours' gardens

[Blahdeblah1]

I moved into my house a year ago and have three cats. My neighbours are all quite elderly and have lived there for decades, they are all keen gardeners and very proud of their gardens.

Several months ago my next door neighbour started complaining to me about my cats pooing on his drive, so every time I go round and clear it up. Although to be honest I'm not convinced that the poo is from my cats.

Anyway, I'm now having complaints about cat poo from people who live way down the street, that my cats are pooing in their garden, although they admitted they hadn't actually seen the cat that did it. I live on a large suburban housing estate where there are loads of cats.

AIBU for thinking that cats are cats and I shouldn't be expected to be picking up any cat poo really, and to tell my neighbours to deal with it themselves and stop complaining to me? I can't control where my cats poo, they are not dogs.

Once again Lashes, you show your complete lack of empathy for any other human being, and an amazing ability to continue to argue your point and great perseverance in holding on to your own views regardless of overwhelming evidence from others.

Whattodo or they just don't care. You know, like most people. My neighbours also all have animals, some of whom shit on my garden, so I really doubt they're bothered.

Midnite, just because a few animal haters appear at this time doesn't mean there's an "overwhelming evidence". I go on real life experiences rather than some angry posts on a forum lol.

I don't have a lack of empathy for other humans, just the ones who dislike animals.

Totally sick of cats shitting in my garden and the attitude of some cat owners on here. I can't let MY kids in MY garden to play without checking for someone else's pets shit. Any cat in our garden is fair game gor water pistols, especially the evil little critter that's scratched my niece twice again in MY garden.

Where has anyone on this thread said they dislike animals? Not wanting to clean up the poo from someone else's animals doesn't mean you dislike animals, it means you dislike having shit in your garden.

I have six dogs, two fish and we're about to add chickens. Used to have a cat that lived until she was 19. My weekends revolve around participating in dog shows and trials. When I move to my farm permanently I'll have cows, sheep, pigs and a horse. I adore animals. I still don't like picking up poo from other people's animals in my vegetable patch (which is even fenced off from my own animals).

Midnite quite a few people referred to killing animals earlier on. You didn't, that's fine, others have.

Not an insult, just a fact. You're far from a "tree-hugging hippy", they are good natured, rarely aggressive and try to live lightly on the earth - not fill it with cat shit.

I like animals, mostly. In their place. I've had horses and rabbits in the past. I like cats, in their place. But allowed to run wild they are vermin. I live in the country and there are too many feral cats around. Around here they get shot, not by me, by the farmers.

MythicalKings, hardly a fact, your opinion. Lol I'm generally a nice person, just have little patience for people like you.

"In their place" and what place is that? Animals have as much right as you to roam freely. Ah, country folk. Explains everything. Say no more

Animals have as much right as you to roam freely.

No they don't that's just daft. Anthropomorphic nonsense. Humans will always matter more than animals.

And let's keep lions in zoos and cats in their owners' properties.

I work in a pet store and we sell items to keep cats off your garden.

I hear people everyday complaining about cats pooing in their gardens. I also hear stories about how far people have gone to stop them fouling in their gardens.

It's not just on mumsnet. It's quite a big problem in my area. People are pissed off.

I have lots of rabbits, they have hutches and runs for them to use. Why can't the same be used for cats? One lady a few streets away must have at least 30 cats. Imagine what her neighbours say...

Every so often I read in the local newsletter about cats being purposely poisoned. I guess folk have had enough.

Lashes it is attitudes of people like you that leads to cats being poisoned.

You are not doing cats any favour with your stance and building up resentment and hatred towards them in otherwise compassionate people . Completely counterproductive.

A humane but effective alternative to wire

www.amazon.co.uk/Fence-Wall-Spikes-13-5M-40-5M/dp/B0046ZFBQI

Also motion detected sound & water sprinklers

www.amazon.co.uk/PestBye-Battery-Operated-Cat-Repeller/dp/B004SGC75S/ref=sr_1_sc_3?s=outdoors&ie=UTF8&qid=1436786623&sr=1-3-spell&keywords=motion+detected+sprinkler

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004YCUT4W/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=569136327&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000071NUS&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=19QJ0H2HEV9NDYCBGMGB

Ffs completely with everything said by lashes. It's beyond me how anyone can think its ok to be poison cats because of cat shit. And I suspect kids are more at harm from people chatting shit than cat shit.
All this thread has convinced me of is the fact Darwins theory doesn't apply to human intelligence. And that if any of my lovely neighbours move instead of doing what up to now I'd have done, and telling neighbours to let me know if my cats were to start shitting in their garden and I'll move it, I intend waiting to see if any new future neighbour is a frothing irrational mumsnetter, at which point I'll delight in rubbing their nose in the fact my cat can shit in their garden and there's fuck all they can do.

when i lived in vancouver, a big city, full of apartment blocks, there was such a thing as 'indoor cats' - cats who had never been outside and, even if you left the door wide open, would not leave the apartment. probably not very humane but did solve the cat poo problem!

we spent a small fortune on motion detector cat thingies - never worked. maybe the onslaught of so many cats was just too much for them!

as an aside, if i pooed in my neighbour's garden i'd be arrested. the right to roam pales into insignificance when compared to property rights. we have virtually no right to roam

Seems it's not so much the cats that are the issue, so much as a (thankfully) minority of owners

I'm perfectly rational but fucking right I'm frothing,

And regardless of crap like being arrested for harassment, etc. if I knew it was your cat, you'd be getting its filthy shit returned.

It makes me gag and stinks my bin out. Your cat, you deal with it

If some frothing irrational loon started returning my cat shit I'd report them for harassment and then raise my game by leaving horse shit on the road outside their house. Luckily my neighbours aren't frothing irrational loons so we can all be courteous

Lurked - it is your cat, you can't report them for harassment for returning the shit that your own cat does.
You sound utterly unhinged. As do most of the frothing cat loons on this thread.

Many people manage to own and care for cats in a responsible way, it can't be that hard for you to do the same.

And I'd still not have ventured into illegal territory

some wise advice for you, it's better to keep your mouth closed and risk looking stupid, than to open your mouth and confirm it. Which is very quite apt if you read my original post on this thread. And this debate just goes to prove my long held belief that a battle of wits isn't fair when only one side is armed

Lurked, why would it be illegal for someone to return your cat shit, but not illegal for you to dump unknown horse shit on someone's door step?

I think domestic cats are unethical pets because of this.

If you live on a massive farm and own all the land for 10 miles, have a bloody cattery.

Or train them to use litter trays or um Don't Have Cats.

Why should your pet needs come at the price of your cat shite-ing up other people's gardens?

I have cleared up enough of other people's cat shite out of my garden to HATE CATS now. It's just totally unacceptable and anyone defends morally I genuinely consider to be morally moronic. There is no defence!

I have posted this before on here many times

I used to be a keen gardener, but I got fed up of the local cats destroying my garden, I must have spent thousands of £s on my garden. Only to have pieces of it destroyed by cats, I got fed up of picking up after them. So I decided that enough was enough so I ripped the whole garden out put down DPM and 1/2 inch + gravel. Problem solved no more garden no more cats.

The next issue was the pissy cat loving neighbour who complained that their cat had lost their favourite spot.

I wonder if my ex neighbour was one of those defending cat shit on this thread.

If British houses weren't obscenely small (or blocks of flats were more of a thing), maybe having indoor cats would take off more. As it is, it is generally expected that cats will roam free in the neighbourhood. And no matter how much you huff and puff about it, it would be cruel to suddenly keep a cat indoors when it's used to roaming free. You could get some very effective fencing around your garden which might mitigate the change (instead of keeping them inside), but I can't imagine it would be any less cruel for the cat that way really. It would be very confused and probably injure itself trying to get out.

Jesus wept! I have never seen anything like this. A cats 'feline rights' being abuses because people don't want them to shit on their lawn? Hilarious!

Wow some people really think their world and everyone else should revolve around their cat being comfortable taking a dump?

I am getting some of those sprinklers.

Spartans

I went through the supersoaker stage of getting rid of cats, in the end I loaded up the gun with a large amount of food colouring.

That way I could identify which cats came coming back, for a while we had all sorts of coloured cats where I lived.