To wonder what you would say to a neighbour complaining about your cat weeing and pooing their prize vegetable garden?

[Upthepong]

Just that really. I'm a bit non-plussed about it all

Deterrent devices can harm other animals, please reconsider their use.

Why should other animals suffer more because of cats and their owners?

or do not look surprised when your neighbours don't like it or you.

Do people actually care what their neighbours think of them

Also you can send your toddler round to shit on my doorstep as long as your happy with me dumping a bucket of water over it and reporting you to SS. Because it's not really the same is it?

You sound a right charmer, Contraception. Let’s all make as big a nuisance of ourselves as we please, who cares what the neighbours think..
I can imagine what your poor neighbours think of you.

I've never understood how cats are allowed to have duality in the law.

On the one hand, they're domestic pets, so if you shoot / poison or harm them, it's criminally harming a person's pet / property...

...on the other, they're wild animals so the owners seem to have no responsibility to control them.

Compare to dogs where you have a legal responsibility to control them.

Backs slowly away from the thread. Considers name change...

You could always post in The Litter Tray topic OP.

@TheGrey1houndSpeaks probably nothing! We make no noise and we're all on "nods head and says hello" in the morning wave length.
Why would they think anything when I've never said more than two words to them 🤦‍♀️

There is a cat that shits in our fruit and veg beds where I’m trying to grow food for us to eat and where my toddler ‘helps’ with the digging. It’s revolting and hazardous. I don’t see why people are not made to be responsible for their cats in the same way they are for dogs. If they can’t be kept on a leash or in the garden then they aren’t suitable to be a domestic pet.

I'm a little confused about what people think happens to veg that's grown in a field. Any manner of animal could be doing their business all over your lettuce, rats, mice, foxes.

I have 4 cats (not all go out) and have lived in areas with a big cat population and a child and I really didn't feel the need to go out exploring my garden for poo. Yes, I come across it when I garden but I'm wearing gloves and I either get rid of it or dig it over. To be fair, my cats are very good, as most are, and cover it very thoroughly. I'm more likely to find hedgehog poop along our driveway and on our grass but I'm not really sure what I can do about that!

Why are you confused? People don’t travel to farm fields to pick their own produce.

My cat uses cat litter but for some reason started pooing beside next doors garden gnome. I’ve no idea why, company perhaps?

I spotted her and went to chase her away and spotted neighbour. Apparently they’d noticed as well but didn’t want to say anything.

I bought them a big water pistol and they squirted it near but not at my cat every time she went towards the gnome. It soon stopped her.

She goes out hardly at all now so don’t believe she is terrorising other gnomes in the area. If she was I’d buy them a water pistol to squirt near her as well if they were up for it.

When I approached my neighbour several years ago to point out that my daughter got their cats shit all over her hands while playing in our garden her answer and was "perhaps you could put a blanket down."
My experience is that there's only one thing more inconsiderate than cats and that's cat owners.
Couple of years later fed up with her cat getting Hawthorne clippings in his paws every time I cut the hedge she asked if I would replace the hedge with a fence.
I could barely get the words out for laughing........"perhaps you can put a blanket down"

Dog shit is also a nuisance and a menace.

But this thread’s been started by a cat owner about her cat.

The best way to protect vegetables from cats (and carrot fly, cabbage white caterpillars, pea moth larvae and umptymumble other vile pests that put the mockers on growing your own) is to build a frame round the patch and cover it with agricultural fleece.
You could go for something tidy like in this picture, or just stick old tennis balls on top of canes and toss the fleece over the top, weighing the edges down with bricks.
While you're at it subscribe to a nemaslug delivery service (and actually get round to dissolving the packet in the watering can and watering the veggie patch with them when they arrive), so that the local slugs don't all relocate to your lettuce patch.

Get a litter tray OP. The cat will start to shit indoors. But it will never stop spraying. All cats spray.

I'm a little confused about what people think happens to veg that's grown in a field. Any manner of animal could be doing their business all over your lettuce, rats, mice, foxes.

Wild animals do not live at the population concentrations that domestic cats do. They have much larger roaming grounds. They also tend to stay away from humans. Fields away from houses inhabited by domestic cats don't get targeted as much. Areas that really get targeted are those on the borders of domestic cat territories, so the gardens of blameless humans other than their pets. I have got an allotment on the edge of town as well as a veg patch in my small backyard. I get much more cat muck in that 6 square metres in the back in one week than I do in the much larger allotment in a whole year.

One thing i'm trying is planting catmint to hopefully entice them to a different area

I'm trying that this year. I figure that if it doesn't keep the cats away from the veg, it might at least get my neighbour to try and keep her cats away from our garden if she gets fed up of them coming in off their tits on nip every night

stealthsquirrelnutkin

Do you think I should put that over my entire garden to stop the cats?

We've had seven cats, none of them would use a litter tray.

Cat poop is dangerous because of parasites such as toxoplasmosis. If your cat was pooping on my food then I’m afraid your cat would disappear if you didn’t take steps to keep it away.

Cats are a pain in the arse

you can do something about it though, you can control your pet or not have one.
I find cat owners selfish when they don't know where they are.

@stealthsquirrelnutkin
Lovely pic - for my allotment.

For my veg bed at home Im allowed to have a lovely garden without putting up a debris netting concoction just because someone thinks its ok to let their cat shit where they want to and expect people to accept it.

You can't control an outside cat. And any other kind is cruel.

This is what you want, we have one that won't bugger off, no idea who it belongs to.
I'm off to get one tomorrow.
www.primrose.co.uk/-p-82411.html?adtype=pla&kwd=&gclid=CjwKCAjw-ZvlBRBbEiwANw9UWgsNH0lZCDfDYIPEuP6VWBio2BzUXAEw_VGdKjsaWdaGlOMxdPkDsRoCXbsQAvD_BwE