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.

I'm not freaked out by poo. I've had my share of code browns when I was training as a HCP.

Doesn't mean I want to keep picking other people's responsibility shit from my garden.

The neighbour opposite me has 3 cats and the days I have been at home have had to chase them out the garden before they poop. I spent over £100 putting down slate to protect my flower beds and now the fukers started pooping on my lawn. Will the neighbour pay the bill for me so I can enjoy my garden - yeah right. Before the slate I could easily in a week fill 3 tesco bags full of crap, the smell was awful. Obviously they wouldn't go in their owner's garden cos quelle surprise it was a patio garden.

Now they poop on the lawn its worse because I have to let it dry out before picking it up otherwise it just smears all over the grass and when I did it once I had to then dig up the grass to get rid of it properly. Not to mention the vomit inducing smell - its foul.

I also had a lovely front garden but yet again the cats also went there - ended up block paving it over as I got so sick of walking out the front door to fresh shit every bloody morning. Another £3k cost.

Thing is whilst cats by law are roaming animals us non-cat owners have to fork out money to be able to enjoy our spaces and that isn't fair.

Thankfully that neighbour is looking to move, I just wish they would hurry up and sell the place and take the cats with them.

LilMiss - three cats filling three carrier bags in a week? Really? Hahaha. Considering a cat will only poo about once a day (twice at most), I think you must be exaggerating just a teeny tiny bit. You must have had three mountain lions in your garden, not domestic cats.

Again, I say: it must be very annoying if you live in a little house with a little garden to have to put up with neighbour's cat poo. But please, stop with all the made-up stuff.

I am not making it up its a fact thank you very much and I don't need to make stuff up to make my point. There are more than 3 cats in the neighbourhood but I definitely know and therefore can say that the 3 cats belonging to my neighbour contribute as I have had to chase them out of the garden when I have been at home - one was even sick all over my paving slabs which then had to be cleaned.

FYI - I have a 3 bed house with a 40ft garden so its hardly little.

Lets see how you like having to spend hundreds of pounds or spend time that you shouldn't have to clearing up shit so you can enjoy your garden or not walk outside every morning to a stinking pile of shit.

We spent a fortune on cat proof fencing and it's working really well.

Another neighbour has used anti climb paint and that seems to have solved the problem for them.

We not shit lovers shouldn't have to pay to protect our property from other people's indulgences but it's worth the money, frankly.

poster could well be, once cats find a place to piss they like they do tend to return to it, especially if 2 are both trying to out mark each other over who's territory it is. Only actual solution I can think of is borrowing a dog for a few days and seeing if the alternative marking makes them back off. Alternatively foxes, they burn grass.
And for the rest, using words like ethical, or distress just makes you sound very silly, if you haven't got any reasonable grounds for your stance, using words like ethical and distress doesn't give your case any more credence, nor do plaintive phrases like 'please just admit it you don't care' make you sound worthy of any sympathy about your 'distress'. They just come across as feeble tbh. And as a point of reference, unless you daily see the same cat shitting daily, chances are it's foxes that you see far more signs of shit and marking from in urban areas than country. Urban foxes are also roughly cat size, jump 6' odd no problem, and are easily mistaken as cats in anything but clear daylight unless close up.

amithat who said tell your neighbours before you blast with a water pistol incase they don't like it?

Where are all these herds of wildebeest hordes of wild animals shitting in gardens? I live in a city and the only shit I get in my garden is cat shit and a bit of bird shit down the fence, and the latter doesn't stink to high heaven or interfere with our enjoyment of the garden in the way the shit of a meat-eating animal does. We aren't bothered by urban foxes, infested with squirrels, have never seen evidence of rats or mice - I'm sure there probably are some but they're not visibly crapping in my flowerbed - and so far as I'm aware there are no escaped bears in the neighbourhood. So if it wasn't for my neighbours' cats, my garden would be apparently and pleasantly excrement-free.

PageNotFound I'm in London and we have fox problem, but it ebbs and flows with the season and how responsible your neighbours are with garbage/refraining from feeding them (some people do, don't ask me why).

Cats remain constant as they're (obviously) domestic pets with a food source and owners.

We not shit lovers shouldn't have to pay to protect our property from other people's indulgences but it's worth the money, frankly.

Yep.

PageNotFound - must have missed the wildebeest post! Will go back to check - must have been made by someone living somewhere on the African continent

LilMiss - that was a bosom-hoiky post, if ever I read one. (grin] I replied to your post, intimating that the three cats belonging to one neighbour were responsible for you having to fill three carrier bags of poo in one week. In your reply to me, you've changed it to your neighbour's three cats 'contributing'. That is quite different from your original post (because, quite frankly, that would be unbelievable, so you can understand my confusion)!!

Goodbye - Urban foxes are quite a problem, I understand, because as you say, very stupid people either feed them, or don't secure their rubbish adequately. We have foxes because we (and neighbours) have either pet rabbits or guinea pigs, and the foxes visit, hoping for an opportune moment to snaffle them.

Cat Poo threads - the gift that just keeps giving. It has kept me amused for a few days, I will admit

Oh - BTW! Someone mentioned above about a neighbour keeping 30 cats. Now that is most definitely ridiculous, whether in a built-up area or not, unless she runs a cat rescue and they are all contained (which it doesn't appear so). I'd also be seriously annoyed with such a neighbour. Quite aside from the amount of poo, how on earth could she keep up with all their flea and worm treatments, or afford Veterinary care if any of them got sick?

That is the definition of a 'mad cat lady'.

We had a fox in our garden for a while. It was sweet relief! Finally a top predator that kept the cats and squirrels away. No more cat poo and we actually had cherries and blue berries left for us to eat (damn squirrels!) We also had more little birds flitting around which are a pleasure to watch in our blossoming cherry tree while doing the washing up.

We had very little fox poo to deal with and it was much easier to cope with as it was on the lawn not in the veg patch.

I'll take a fox over a cat anyday. The fox liked to nap in a sunny spot by our brick wall all spring. He/She looked very glossy and healthy (we live near a forest). Then the fox disappeared as summer came into full force. Ah well.

That's actually funny, Whattodo One of our cats chases our foxy visitors away. We had some footage on our CCTV camera once. Honestly, it was like something from a Monty Python film.

Pigeons, Jackdaws and Parakeets are the main culprits for eating our cherries, apples and pears. The squirrels tend to go for the hazelnuts and bird food.

My hunter cat is actually a positive to the wild bird population, I'm not denying she has maybe 4/5 year max, but she regularly (as in 3/4 times a week) gets magpies, squirrels and pigeons that cause problems food wise for the smaller birds, and magpies are predators in their own right. And other days it's rodents with the odd rarity.

Utterly selfish of you. Litter train them or keep them indoors.

No

Then don't be surprised if you ever have to deal with the consequences. For people like you, dumping a cat in the woods is the only option

Erm, you mean the consequences of picking it out of my own garden and telling neighbours to let me know if they ever use yours?
Even if I had 30 cats who shat worms all over the place while I laughed smugly on, only a fucking world class cunt would think taking their anger out on an innocent animal was ok. The kind of sadist twisted twat that should be dumped in the centre of a desert in a ski suit. Takes a really supreme level of fuckwittery and cowardice to hurt anything defenceless for spite towards someone else

I suppose that's what happens when people are utterly fed up with the owners not taking any responsibility for their animals, Lurked. They threaten to dump them.

I've never heard of it happening irl, though.

I can understand gathering up all the shit and dumping it on the owner's doorstep, but taking it out on the cat is waaaay over the line, no matter how provoked someone might feel.

I once knew a woman (friend of family, I was a kid still) that drowned the cat from upstairs.
I think she's dead now, she was really old.
She got her adult son with SEN to do it.
Not very nice.
I hate the poop, but wouldn't drown a kitteh! I have been known to chuck stuff in the general direction of a squatting cat though.

But even threatening mythical demonstrates a psychopathic lack of empathy. I've witnessed first hand dick head pet owners that threatened the life of my animals or others, one that threatened my life and seen them mutilate and kill someone else's pets. Or death from one pet to another of someone else's. And while I would have had no moral qualms about the same violence being inflicted on the human responsible I've never had any form of even mild resentment towards the animal, and even as a scare tactic couldn't use a threat upon the animal because it goes against my morals. Same as I wouldn't threaten someones child as a means to wound the adult no matter what they adult had done to me because it's the same abhorrent thought process even of it's a bluff.
And even if you don't see it that way then the other view is it's pure cowardice, threaten the adult to their face, but not whatever innocent beings they might have. It's the same principle as taking something/ someone hostage

No it doesn't. It's just a threat. I've threatened to nail my DS to the wall in the past. We both knew it wouldn't happen but he did pick his socks up.

Even if I had 30 cats who shat worms all over the place while I laughed smugly on
Says it all. You'd be laughing at someone who is distressed at you and your cats behaviour but they should put up with it.