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.

Goodbye - have just read the article in your link. It is full of:

May be's
It is possible that
Such and such could happen

And the writer of the article itself says the studies are inconclusive and goes on to say that the biggest risk comes from eating raw or undercooked meat.

You are simply scaremongering, IMO.

Really? Here's the link to the original study which is published in the Schizophrenia Journal.

www.schres-journal.com/article/S0920-9964(15)00176-0/fulltext

I have been denied access to the entire report, for some reason, but the Abstract states:

Two previous studies suggested that childhood cat ownership is a possible risk factor for later developing schizophrenia or other serious mental illness. We therefore used an earlier, large NAMI questionnaire to try and replicate this finding. The results were the same, suggesting that cat ownership in childhood is significantly more common in families in which the child later becomes seriously mentally ill. If true, an explanatory mechanism may be Toxoplasma gondii. We urge our colleagues to try and replicate these findings to clarify whether childhood cat ownership is truly a risk factor for later schizophrenia.

Again, the words used 'suggested' 'if true' 'may be' etc lead me to doubt it is a conclusive study. "We urge our colleagues to try to replicate these findings"

Even if you take that as evidence, which I personally don't, the huge number of studies that provide enough data to be beyond reasonable doubt show owning pets/ contact with animals improve, help and prevent a wide range of physical and mental issues, from General childhood immunity to autism to depression and disordered eating to name but a few.
It's like the mmr/ autism evidence, even if you take the inconclusive evidence that mmr can cause autism as fact, then that risk of autism is inconsequential to the actual scientifically proven risk of no vaccination. That article is the same.

Except lurked that the people complaining about cat shit here are getting all of the risk and non of the benefit.

When I first moved in and we introduced ourselves, my neighbour told me how much her cats liked my garden and I though "brilliant, my toddler will love that". Turns out the cat just comes into the garden to piss and crap in the evening once the toddler is in bed.

It's like the mmr/ autism evidence, even if you take the inconclusive evidence that mmr can cause autism as fact, then that risk of autism is inconsequential to the actual scientifically proven risk of no vaccination. That article is the same.

It would be the same if the non-MMR population had lower rates of autism than the MMR population. But that's not the case.

I don't debate that at all, I no way do I think mmr and autism are linked. I meant even if you did decide the so called evidence it was linked was true, the positive still outweighs the negative.

But only for cat owners Lurked.

OK well this is becoming silly because you're playing kind of fast and loose with the autism/MMR debate, but cat owners have higher rates of schizophrenia. MMR populations don't have higher rates of autism.

For clarity, I'm not worried about contracting disease from animal poo (although I worried a lot when my kids were toddlers), I was just forced to google after someone posted that dog poo is disgusting and disease ridden (true) and that cat poo is wonderful, not a nuisance at all.

In general terms no poster, lots of people get advantages from animal contact without personally owning them. In regards to toxy which I guess you're referring to, I'd argue it's not just the cat owners that get an advantage. Firstly because contact with toxy and therefore immunity before pregnancy is a positive thing, and even if you assume cats are the main cause ( which they aren't) if all cats suddenly vanished then someone with no other animal contact would be less likely to get immunity before adulthood and pregnancy. And on a practical note if cats were all banned from roaming, you'd still get feral populations nobody claimed ownership for on farms etc, and ones that have been abandoned or owners denying ownership etc, meaning again there's less chance of immunity before pregnancy. And let's not forget they aren't the only source. However while I disagree cats are a negative for none owners, I can understand why for you personally right now you'd feel that way

Even if you take that as evidence, which I personally don't, the huge number of studies that provide enough data to be beyond reasonable doubt show owning pets/ contact with animals improve, help and prevent a wide range of physical and mental issues, from General childhood immunity to autism to depression and disordered eating to name but a few.

They're probably less stressed because they're not the ones picking up their animals' shit...

Don't be ridiculous

It was tongue in cheek (I'm a pet owner myself as I said earlier in the thread) but you carry on being rude if it makes you feel better.

I was talking with regards to improving mental health lurked, but I guess my statement would apply more generally too.

I've been thinking about whether I would support a ban on cat ownership and I think (even ignoring the practicalities) I would not. But I would probably support an end to right-to-roam. That way people with tiny or no gardens (or people with gardens but cat-hating dogs like my neighbour) would be put off cat ownership. It would also put the onus on owners to keep cats in rather than on neighbours to keep cats out.
Plus less cats getting squished on the road.

Mental health wise animals do in general offer more advantages than disadvantages, even if in situations like yours poster they don't offer any positive.
I'm not sure you could practically enforce no right to roam to a point where it would make any difference to poo. It might stop your neighbours but idiots will still be idiots. Even if you made it as absolute as 'it roams, destruction with no exceptions', the knob % of the population would just get another. And the feral cats would keep breeding. Plus the cost of even attempting to enforce it would be more than council employed cat poo pickers going round gardens, they're too agile and good at hiding and evading capture.

I think it's more analogous to Climate Change deniers in the USA, than it is to anti-vaxers. Republicans latch hold of words scientists use to express reasonable probabilities, and then claim no one knows for sure and push through Fracking. Responsible researchers seldom express absolutes.

I think it would be more about mandating cat proof fencing (and if you can't provide a secure area for cats you don't get to have one). That could be enforced by a "cat warden" following up reports similar to dog wardens. I don't think it would work well in the country but I could see it working in cities.

I still don't think it would work, firstly because it wouldn't take much initiative to just go and take one of the feral kittens from the country, and you'd get a black market. Look at how easy it is to breed illegal dogs, sell underage puppies/ kittens, dogs being stolen for resale value not just for baiting, horse meat scandal etc and yet all are illegal, the last being supposedly registered and if they can't prevent all that, especially something as big as half a tonne, I don't see any system keeping track of a few lbs of cat.
Shame we can't just impose a rule about being considerate, so if your cat is regularly shitting in the same place you move it, and if you occasionally find one you get over it. Although no more practical than banning roaming to enforce

Why ban the animals? Surely the easy answer is to add additional insurance costs on to home/car/contents insurance for animal owners, then when these situations occur the money is taken from the pot to sort out gardens, and install preventative measures.

I complained to my neighbours regarding their cat shitting in my garden, at the time we had just had it landscaped, before when it was just grass lawn the cat didn't seem to use it as a toilet.
The neighbour told me that cats are classed as wild animals and are free to roam where they like, so in other words piss off!
I do find cat owners (that i know) have this attitude though.

Goodbye; "OK well this is becoming silly"
Really, the original question was is OP being unreasonable to not pick up other peoples cat poo in other peoples gardens and it's got to 520 posts with some people saying yes OPs unreasonable, it got silly about 500 posts ago. If we're talking about silly though you've suggested that cats shouldn't be free to roam and the fact that the are is only parliaments current opinion on the matter, which whilst true ignores the fact that it's been the opinion of every parliament ever, and any suggestion it was changed would be more laughed at than debated. If you struggle to understand that imagine the reaction to a bill suggesting birds will not longer be allowed to fly because of the inconvinience of bird poo. or dogs to bark because of noise disturbance.

It's not at an attitude it's the law popcorn.

Thats not true. The law has recently changed in australia www.dlg.wa.gov.au/Content/Legislation/ResponsibleCatOwnership.aspx and may change here in the future. Rightly or wrongly.