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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Neighbour very ranty about our cat

259 replies

CaptainWarbeck · 15/02/2016 04:41

Right I have just been accosted while putting the baby into the car by our neighbour who is a (generally) lovely elderly woman. She is very garden-proud and not at all happy about our cat.

We have a ginger cat who is outside during the day and in at night. There are lots of other cats in the area. Our cat is digging occasionally in her flowerbeds, which I do get is frustrating for her as she loves to garden.

Her very cross suggestions: I should be watching the cat at all times he is outside so digging cannot happen (ffs sake I have a 9m old and a job) OR we should be keeping him inside and never letting him back out again OR we should be madly erecting fences everywhere to prevent him getting anywhere near her (he's a cat, he would climb and jump them).

AIBU to think if you live in a communal area with cats around, the occasional bit of digging is annoying but kind of just one of those things?

I'm admittedly hormonal and grumpy (despite being very polite to her) and this has not been a good start to the day. Any practical suggestions on either the cat or ways to make her stop banging on about it?

OP posts:
BillSykesDog · 15/02/2016 07:45

YANBU OP, but you should buy her a super soaker/hose etc, etc.

Mumsnet is just insane sometimes.

Fluffycloudland77 · 15/02/2016 07:48

If she didn't dig her borders so much the ground would be too hard for the cat to dig in.

Nappies all round for all animals so the professionally offended don't ever have to come into contact with poo at any time ever.

Tell her to fuck off.

ExConstance · 15/02/2016 07:50

Several of my neighbours have cats, some of the cats are quite nice. (I do however find it very upsetting when they do teh digging and crapping thing in my garden. Firstly my dog likes to eat catshit and it makes him very poorly so then I have extra nasty crap to clean up. I had the most beautiful planter outside my front door with lots of different house leem type plants. Mext doors cat rooted them all out and filled the top of the pot with crap a couple of weeks back. I clean up every scrap of poo my dog produced inpublic ( I've just ordered another 1000 poo bags off ebay) and I think if he hoped over the fence and did similar things in their garden to what their cat does in mine they would be hopping mad.

acasualobserver · 15/02/2016 07:52

Tell her to fuck off.

Yes, that'll get everything sorted.

kesstrel · 15/02/2016 07:55

If all cats were kept indoors, the rodent population, including rats, would become a much bigger problem.

ShamefulPlaceMarker · 15/02/2016 07:58

Yabu! Yabu! Yabu!
Fucking cats! Drive me mad! My 2yr old came in from our back garden with cat shit all over her knees! She'd been playing and crawling in the grass with her car and crawled straight through it. I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT!!!!!!!!
No one should own a cat, they are ferel and rubbish pets. They're better off wild. Atleast then there's be less of them.

cuntycowfacemonkey · 15/02/2016 08:03

If it's digging it's crapping. I don't blame her tbh I have two cats and and sick to death of the amount of shit in our garden. The only reason I don't do anything to stop them is because I don't want them doing it in the neighbours garden. It never used to be that bad but as they've got older it's worse to the point where I wish we'd never got them.

Lasaraleen · 15/02/2016 08:04

This is why owning a cat is an enormously selfish and anti-social act. Yes, shitting and digging up other people's gardens is what cats do. So why fucking get one in the knowledge that this is what the bastard thing will do? Does your inexplicable desire to own a cat trump your neighbours' desire to not have shit in their garden?

As you might be able to tell, I live on a corner plot which backs on to 5 other gardens. 4 have cats. One has a dog.

I don't have any objection to keeping a cat which never leaves your own property, but sadly this is not what most people round here do.

EastMidsMummy · 15/02/2016 08:04

Your neighbour should do a shit in your garden once your 9m old can toddle and see how you like it.

SmallGreenBouncyBall · 15/02/2016 08:06

yabu
your pet is causing damage and you just shrug it off?
just keep your cat indoors. if you are not home much, maybe you shouldn't have a pet.

Flutterbutterfly · 15/02/2016 08:10

Most Cats want to be out exploring and having fun. Buy her a big watergun, deterent and she can police it.

I have a dog that mostly keeps the cats out.

Quoteunquote · 15/02/2016 08:13

No one can be held responsible for their cats behaviour.

but if your cat is causing someone else misery to the point they try to talk to you about it, then at least try and help them, buy her a super soaker and show her how to use it, it won't hurt the cat. Much better than someone coming up with their own plan.

Suggest she uses holly to top her flower beds,

Motion sensor sprinkler systems work well but work out expensive.

Ragwort · 15/02/2016 08:14

Are you my neighbour?

I had to pick up three lots of cat poo in my garden yesterday, it is not pleasant. This thread has reminded me to go and check the garden again this morning.

Why do people own cats and let them roam around?

MetalMidget · 15/02/2016 08:16

Cats need to be fully litter trained if they're going to be allowed out, with 24 hour access to their tray (but even then that doesn't always solve the problem).

You can also cat proof your fences, so that your cat can go into your garden but can't climb out into other people's (it also reduces the risk of your cat being run over, going missing, or being attacked by dogs when they go into their gardens).

Failing that, you could offer to clean up her flowerbeds/fix the damage (if the digging is killing plants) a couple of times a week.

I like cats, but it does leave me a bit surprised that people think it's ok for them to shit in other people's gardens and kill their plants, because 'that's what cats do'.

Alfieisnoisy · 15/02/2016 08:17

I see the cat haters are out in force.

OP your neighbour loves her garden and doesn't want cat poop there.

You have a couple or even three options here. You can erect fencing which will contain your cats. The type of fencing which bends in at the top but is quite tall.

Alternatively and what I would do is buy my neighbour a water pistol and give her full permission to soak your cat if she sees it in her garden. It won't take many soakings to act as a deterrent.

Or get a litter tray and encourage your cat to use it.

I have three cats and none of them leave my garden (one rarely leaves the house) and all come in to use a litter tray.

My garden is still full of cat poop as the neighbouring cats all come in.

I don't especially mind as I am a keen gardener....it all goes in the compost bin.

rosieliveson1 · 15/02/2016 08:19

A neighbour once came to complain that our cat was playing in his massively overgrown garden and he was worried he might find and kill and mouse, leaving it there. My husbands response "thanks for letting me know, I'll have a word with him" Grin Brilliant!

Pontytidy · 15/02/2016 08:24

The legal fact is cats can roam, however the neighbour is clearly upset, therefore she can try an cat proof her flower beds. This issue is ultimately bound to apply to all cats who come into her garden not just yours. Cats are not held to be trainable like dogs and therefore there is little you can do once the cat is outside.

Original poster
CaptainWarbeck · 15/02/2016 08:27

Rosie Grin

Right I'll buy a water pistol and she can soak him if he does it again. I'm also going to offer to buy some cat deterrent pellets for her to put round her flowers if she'd like me to.

He is fully litter trained and has a litter box. I'm genuinely surprised at the number of YABUs here, I still think cats roaming about is part and parcel of living in a city but hey. She's nice enough and I don't want to fall out with her over it.

OP posts:
limitedperiodonly · 15/02/2016 08:29

When your nine month old starts digging in the garden you might be less tolerant of cat shit.

Buy a litter tray so that you deal with at least some of your cat's shit. If your neighbour points out cat shit in her garden, clear it up and resist the temptation to argue that it might have been left by other cats, foxes, badgers etc. Buy her a supersoaker and tell her to use it on him.

Oh, you could apologise.

That way your (generally) lovely neighbour might become totally lovely again because you are being responsible for your pet.

limitedperiodonly · 15/02/2016 08:32

I see he has a litter tray. That's really good. If the deterrent pellets don't work, you won't mind if she asks you to clean up shit in her garden, will you?

Original poster
CaptainWarbeck · 15/02/2016 08:38

And just to clear up a couple of things: I did apologise, said I understood she loves her garden and said we'd think about some options. I was nice Hmm

And he hadn't pooed in it. She showed me. He'd literally pawed a bit of earth on to her pavement.

OP posts:
DSClarke · 15/02/2016 08:39

If i was her I would ask you to come round once a week and clean up her garden.

You own something that is destroying her garden, and probably shitting on it. Why on earth would she not be pissed off?

Pontytidy · 15/02/2016 08:43

I think op that your approach is pragmatic and would hope that the neighbour would recognise this, I do not think you should be continually buying pellets to deter cats - once maybe as a gesture

MrsJayy · 15/02/2016 08:44

When we had a cat i apologised to my neighbour and gave her 1 of the spritz bottles to spray her if she caught her it worked cant be much fun cats shitting in your garden or digging up flowers

Katnisnevergreen · 15/02/2016 08:56

It genuinely worries me the amount of vitriol spewed on here against cats. The threats of violence and abuse are horrifying. I think some of you need to calm down loves and take a step back before replying in future. Whether said for effect or for real, it's not on.
I dislike people who left their children run around screaming in public, but I would never speak even on here the way some of you do.
Grow up and get a life