To remove these cat spikes on a fence?

[Alexandra80]

Woken up this morning by my DC screaming saying our young cat is bleeding everywhere. Both his paws are very bloody and we've washed him and dried him (he's suuuuper fluffy so it's hard to see the damage and his fur was matted with blood).

He obviously tried to jump onto our porch roof from a non spiked fence which he does a lot as he likes it up there, miscalculated and landed heavily on the spiked fence which is right by our porch door. The spikes are plastic but very pointed. Originally there was a path that led down that side of our house but the lady who lived in our house before put a fence up and the lady with the garden next to us moved her garden (I. E. Grass, gravel...) to reach the fence.

So technically it's no one's legal property and it was an agreement between that neighbour and the previous tenant. She's only put those cat spikes on this one fence as the other two are official shared boundaries. I get some people hate cats, fine, but buy anoyher kind of detterant. Now I've got to take my cat to the vets and he's in a lot of pain. (I'd talk to my neighbour first but she's proven to be awkard before which is long winded and boring but jist for context as to why I can't just ask her). Would we be unreasonable to remove the spikes later, as it'll likely happen again and it's not legally anyone's? Thinking of calling rspca for advice once we're back from the vets. I always thought the spikes weren't meant to hurt/impale cats, just deter them.

The spikes I've posted were the ones that got him. Those dark brown/reddy spots are his blood and a but of his fur is there too so we know for sure that it was the spikes.

Christ I should proofread before I post

Holy shit those are vicious!!

They're pretty sharp for plastic ones. I certainly would fancy accidentally falling on one!

Poor kitty! Those things look nasty. I don't understand how anyone could put things like that up to intentionally injure people's pets, it's sick. There are ways to deter animals without hurting them. I hope his poor little paw is better soon.

*wouldn't 😂

Shit, they’re terrifying .
Whoever put those up is a sadist

@FizzyIce agree.

They're pretty intense

My god, they’re horrific. Wasn’t expecting them to be that bad. Glad they’re down now.

They are the same spikes our council issue to deter cats and burglars on advice from the police. The pcso actually delivered a whole box full to a place I work to be fitted to a perimeter fence covering a lot of land.

They're nasty looking things! If they are legal they sure as hell shouldn't be. At the risk of sounding like Helen Lovejoy - even if people don't care about injuring cats, what about children? If a child tried to climb the fence those monstrosities could cause serious damage.

Glad they're down, OP, and I hope your little cat recovers quickly.

I'm just wondering how many of the cat haters, while loathing felines, think foxes, and hedgehogs, and badgers, and squirrels, and seagulls and woodpigeons that regularly relieve themselves on people's heads, or car windscreens if you're lucky, and other wild animals that might or might not visit the garden are just fine and dandy...

We have two cats. We feed them well, they're chipped, they're neutered, they're wormed and flea-treated regularly. We have tried to keep several different cat collars on one of them, including a special bird scaring collar from America that lasted all of about 30 seconds and is now presumably in a bush somewhere. The other one LOVES her collar and jingles it at every opportunity, though we went through several with her as well. (Yes, we've tried the same one on the younger cat. Lasted maybe 4 minutes, that one.)

They are mainly indoor cats, especially with the vile weather we've had recently. We do, however, let them out during the day (one of us is almost always at home); we have a smallish shared garden at the back of the house, at the front there's a road that is used as a bit of a cut-through between the beach and town, but they don't venture to the front very much.

They have litter trays, one each, which are cleaned pretty much immediately and changed once a week (more if they're using them a lot), but when outside, they like to poo under a particular bush in our garden. They like to kill small rodents. Especially the ones which wiggled their segmented diseased little posteriors into our shed some months ago. (We know they were diseased as the older cat got VERY ill and then the younger one, who was still very wary of going out at that point, caught what she had.)

Still, one of them is getting on a bit, not sure she'll be with us all that much longer. So, just wondering, rather than rescue two new ones when they shuffle off this mortal coil, maybe we should just have them stuffed when they die, or get animatronic ones instead? A bit like in Blade Runner? No, not bleak at all.... Even better, maybe we should just settle for a VR headset and a virtual cat??

As others have said, there are ways to deter cats that do not involve trying to impale them. They don't like citrus. Ours particularly dislike citronella. They don't like water. One of the neighbourhood cats, now in his final days, was such a bully that my landlady used to have a water pistol ready to aim at him when he poked his mottled head in through the catflap. It used to work intermittently. What did work was one of our cats lying in wait for him behind the curtain one night and then jumping his bullying backside.

Those spikes look vile (and I grew up in a part of the country where people used to put glass and barbed wire on the back walls to deter burglars). Aye, those were the days.

Sure they'd be brilliant at deterring the homeless too, though, if planted in empty shop doorways, eh.

OP, I am glad the spikes are down and I hope your kitty heals and gets their confidence back soon.

You have reminded me of some I saw whilst on a home visit once on a low fence which was round a front garden. I was shocked at how sharp they were and meant to report as was worried about a child cutting themselves alongside pets and wildlife.

Thank you. I can see why you'd have them. on very high fences and fences that are not shared by a neighbour to deter burglars. But they're definitely a risk to animals of all sorts.

@chocolateteapot20 I’m not a cat hater, but just felt the need to point out that your comparison between cats and wildlife is not logical. Cats are actually harmful to wildlife, killing many millions of native wild birds every single year. The wildlife shitting in my garden is actively encouraged to come, the cats digging up my plants and shitting in my kids sandpit is NOT. If I were to allow my dog to dig up a garden and shit all over it, there would quite rightly be outrage.

OP I'm glad it's sorted and your cat is recovering.

@Bearfamily1010 squirrels, rabbits, deer, pigeons, seagulls and other wildlife reek havoc on my garden. And the deer terrify my large dogs.

Cats cannot be controlled in the same way that an owner can exercise control over a trained dog. The law recognises that

@Sooverthemill I beg to differ that cats cannot be controlled - house cats are entirely possible. It is owner choice that dictates if a cat goes outside or not.

It is a shame that the wildlife cause “havoc” as you put it, and frighten your dogs. The fact still remains though that wildlife is supposed to be there in a way that cats are not. Wildlife truly cannot be controlled as nobody owns them. Cats, generally speaking, have an owner somewhere, who most likely has no idea what their cat is up to.

@Bearfamily1010 cat owners do have a duty to take reasonable care to ensure that their cats do not injure people or damage property. That's it. Using other peoples gardens as a toilet cannot be controlled by the owner of the cat. Keeping cats captive inside a house is cruel. If you don't like it, feel free to lobby your MP to get the law changed

@Sooverthemill In what way do you believe it to be cruel? I find it much more cruel to allow cats to roam where they are often persecuted, injured in traffic or by other animals or simply lost. This thread is a case in point. Why not choose to protect them instead? There is also the option of building a catio or other purpose built outdoor space - even cat proofing your own garden to stop them getting out of the space you can control.

Besides the issues affecting the cat, there is also the harm they cause to native wildlife which you seem unconcerned about. Similarly, cat waste can carry a risk to human health which also persists in the soil even after removal.

The cats being detrimental to wild birds thing has been disproven by the NSPB and yet not matter how many times it gets shared here people continue to trot that lie out.

@damntheman So the wild animals killed on a daily basis have suffered no harm? 🤨

Jeez those spikes are horrific! Hope your cat makes a good recovery.
For future might be best to keep cat posts off AIBU.....

Bear the NSPB have said the birds killed by cats are the weak and the sick that would die anyway. The greater threat to wildlife is farming. You'd know this too if you Google searched for the article :)

If the fence was put up by someone who used to live in your house then it’s not your neighbours fence. It’s quite probably your fence and she’s committed criminal damage by putting the spikes in it.