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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Returning cat poo to owners garden

67 replies

Slicedpineapple · 11/05/2019 09:24

Can't tell if this is U or not.

There is a cat that lives in a nearby house that is a serial garden pooper and nothing will stop it. 99% of households surrounding us own at least one dog so most cats are deterred, except this one.
This particular cat is a nuisance. You can't open upstairs windows more than half an inch because it will come in. Many a time I have found it staring at the small furry we have in our house. So now we don't open those windows as I also don't want it going in to our LOs room.

A few people have moaned about constant cat shit in their gardens despite owning several dogs (which are trained to toilet in a certain area rather than all over). I know from experience the general deterrents don't seem to work with this cat as I have tried. Nobody around seems to have the electric things because they annoy dogs also.

DP got chatting to a neighbour who mentioned that he just throws it over to the neighbour's garden as he is sick of cleaning up after somebody else's pet when he has young children that play in the garden. He has also found the cat in his house in the past.

Is this U? I think it is, because to me (unfortunately) that is part of having neighbours. Cats seem to come with living near other people, and perhaps some others don't like the amount of dogs that live nearby (obviously they don't clean up after them but they have to deal with some barking).
But the other household do not see this as U at all.
Not really my business as such but I am curious. I just bag up the poo and deal with it.

OP posts:
notangelinajolie · 11/05/2019 10:35

*soil

H1LL · 11/05/2019 10:35

Quick answer NO!
It’s not cricket... plus since cats only poo once a day, it is likely that this is the product of more than one animal....
And if it is terribly stinky, then much more likely to be fox poo.

Legally speaking cats have right to roam - so I’m afraid it comes with the territory and you will have to clear it up and ‘grin and bear it’.

However, there is a way that you can stop a neighbours cat pooping in your garden.... this will be contentious... BUT.... have a cat yourself!

Your cat will poo in somebody else’s garden.... and the other cat will be put off coming in your garden by your cat. Choose a big ginger tom!!!

m00rfarm · 11/05/2019 10:50

I live in Portugal. There are some apartments that have terraces joining onto my roof terrace. A cat comes in from there. It pisses all over the house. On my curtains, in cupboards and over the clothes, on a suitcase, on the sofa. And everyone swears it is not their cat. So now I have to live with a trellis balanced permanently over the bedroom patio doors. So I can no longer walk directly from the bedroom onto the roof terrace - I have to go into the corridor and through the side door. Not a big thing, but annoying. The cat scratches at the trellis to try to get into the house. If it gets in again I will be catching it, putting it into a basket and taking it to a cat protection place the other end of the algarve. If no one admits to owning it, then as far as I am concerned it needs to find a new town to live in. I have had enough of my house smelling of cat piss.

SuziQ10 · 11/05/2019 10:54

Dogs barking at all hours, dog poo on public pavements etc if far more annoying for me than neighbours cats.
We do get some cat poop in our garden but they don't do it on the lawn or deck, for the DC to step in. If I find some half covered in the flower beds it doesn't go over the fence it goes in the bin! It's a bit annoying but just one of those things.
Foxes and dogs are my biggest bugbear. Their poo is next level disgusting.

cabcab · 11/05/2019 10:56

That’s an awful lot of poo for one cat

Exactly

cabcab · 11/05/2019 10:59

Neighbour is nbu at all. Their cat, their shit. Why should someone else bag it up and bin it? They would have to clear up their own dogs shit, so why not their cats 🤷‍♀️

Ridiculous, the cat in question would need to be pooing 20 times a day based the few neighbours and amount of shit being talked about!

It's clearly more than one car, so who knows whose cat is really doing it?

Pinotjo · 11/05/2019 11:06

I chuck ndn cat pooh back over their fence, irresponsible pet owners, every pet they've had has died without vet treatment. I'm a cat person so it doesn't phase me scooping it up with a trowel. I give the cats (3) treats on my front door step to divert them from the front garden, neighbour told me to stop, I didn't, plus I feed them titbits as I feel sorry for them

Pinotjo · 11/05/2019 11:06

*divert them from back garden

AnnaMagnani · 11/05/2019 11:10

One cat producing poo everyday in numerous neighbours' gardens?

Really?

How big is this cat Shock

Whisky2014 · 11/05/2019 11:10

I just treat it as if it's a fox that pics in the garden. Bag and bin

longtimelurkerhelen · 11/05/2019 11:11

Cats normally bury their poo, so if it's on the path/grass or just where I'm stepping out in the open it will be a fox.

Monkey's throw poo...

cabcab · 11/05/2019 11:13

@Pinotjo I had a pain in the arse neighbour like you! Perfectly happy healthy well fed cat that he decided to feed. Then knocking saying cat keeps coming in his house no shit Sherlock!! Then he says he only fed it as he didn't know whose it was, well it sure wasn't his!

Love to hear your neighbours version, probably that you're tempting the cats in by feeding them.

MitziK · 11/05/2019 11:18

I always feel vaguely amused at the notion of not wanting any small feline poo in the garden, so paying good money to acquire and deliberately distribute very big cat poo in the garden.

It's unlikely to be the one cat, anyway - and fox poo, whilst it stinks in a completely different way, is frequently assumed to be belonging to cats, especially by people who don't have cats themselves.

From my experience, a dog won't dissuade a cat from taking a dump unless it's actually in the garden at the time - but having a resident cat with a clear sense of its territory works a good 90 - 95% of the time.

Perhaps your neighbour should get themselves a cat instead?

thelist · 11/05/2019 11:21

You don’t live somewhere beginning with L do you..? Sounds exactly like the cat that lives on my street. Not much you can do really but I don’t think the guy putting the poo in their garden is that unreasonable really

ArfArfBarf · 11/05/2019 11:21

Cats only bury their poo at home, they use it to mark in other peoples gardens so it lies unburied on the lawn for other people’s children to run through - thanks cat owners.

ArfArfBarf · 11/05/2019 11:23

Our neighbour always blamed in on a fox but then we got broken into and installed CCTV and turns out she was wrong.

BishopBrennansArse · 11/05/2019 11:32

Citrus peel or citrus essential oils are a harmless deterrent.

Femodene · 11/05/2019 11:32

Nothing unreasonable about returning the shite to the animals owner, why would someone want to put someone’s animals shite in their own bin? Cat owners want a cat, so they can deal with its stinking shit instead of passing the issue on to other people. Fox poo looks and smells nothing like cats poo.

tierraJ · 11/05/2019 11:34

A big Tom cat poos in my garden. I just bag it up (the poo not the cat!) & dispose of it.
The problem is I have an indoor cat only so other cats aren't put off going in my garden.

Tom cats tend to be the ones who don't bury their poo. They do it to mark their territory. It's called 'middening'.

I don't mind poo as I have to deal with my own cat's litter tray but I can see why people with kids wouldn't like it.

PoptartPoptart · 11/05/2019 11:38

Try installing motion sensors in your garden, either the ones that emit a loud piercing noise (barely audible to humans but animals hate it) or water sprinkler sensors (cats hate water!) You could install a combination of both to ensure maximum effect!
Place them strategically around the garden perimeter.
No cats in garden = no poo in garden.

Islandmum83 · 11/05/2019 11:41

We had this problem in our garden and it was horrendous!! So much so we ended up putting down fake grass (not to everyone's taste but it looks and feels amazing!) and for a few weeks would have a water pistol at the back door ready to shoot at any cat that came in our garden. We don't have any pets, that's our choice, so to have to clean up other people's cats poo was becoming infuriating.
We now only get the odd poo once a week when we've been doing a bit of gardening (we have to put sticks around our flowers and netting over them until they have filled up the space in the planters)

You can also get those high pitch noise makers with a sensor, that way they won't annoy your neighbours dogs

CaptainButtock · 11/05/2019 12:39

Not unreasonable at all. Cat shit is vile. Also dangerous. The fact that some people deem it acceptable to have a tray of it in their kitchen is astonishing.
I used to bust a gut at our allotment, only to find cat shit from the neighbouring house on my veg patch on a daily basis rendering everything inedible. Took great delight in lobbing it over the hedge to them. Extra points for hitting windows/said cat etc.

maddening · 11/05/2019 12:45

My parents cats poo in their litter trays, they have one outside (a covered on with a flap) and one inside (cats are kept in at night). Judging by what they do in their litter it is unlikely they poo elsewhere, so it is possible to train a cat imo

Femodene · 11/05/2019 13:21

Maddening, but people who choose to have a cat and let it outside don’t clean up its shite, ‘it’s what they do’ ‘am I meant to go in people’s gardens and hunt for cat shit so I can pick it up? lol’ is the attitude. Your parents efforts to contain their animals stinking crap is very rare,

maddening · 11/05/2019 14:08

Have I suggested that that is appropriate? Not at all, and not worthy of the tone in your post.

My point is that cat owners should make more of effort to train their cats, it is possible.