To not want cats using my garden

[temporarygate]

Our neighbours cats are frequently in my garden. Last summer they kept shitting at the bottom of our slide and killing birds a our bird feeder. We installed plastic fence spikes to deter them and the neighbour knocked on our door complaining his cats might get injured and that cats have the right to roam.

We have left the spikes up which has stopped them running across the fences to catch birds but the cats continue to come in through trees at the back of the garden and now have adopted our new garden sofas. We bought some of those ultrasonic sounders things but they are not making a difference. We spent £90 on sofa covers to prevent the cats sleeping on the garden furniture but every morning when we go out the cats shoot from under the covers - this morning there’s wet cat hair all over the cushions. I bring the throw cushions indoors but not the seat as back cushions as they are huge and there’s loads of them.

I feel pissed off that I’m going to a lot of hassle and expense of buying things and covering things for someone else’s pets to use.

www.pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/blog/vet-qa-can-pets-catch-coronavirus

Yanbu cats are a pain in the arse and it annoys me that we have to waste money on various deterrents to try and stop them using our garden as a toilet. Can owners don't seem to give a shit though

RonnieBarkingMad bloody hell🤣 are you my ex neighbour who put up hideously criminal booby traps on boundary fences for burglars and animals?

My cats like to come back in to use the litter tray. Next doors cat stares me straight in the eye while shitting in my front garden.
Ide much prefer to deal with cat shit than birds/mice/frogs or anything nasty that comes in the garden.

Fwiw I've told my ndn to throw water at my cats when they are deliberately sitting on the fence winding her dog up. Most cats owners wont care about you shooing them away. They will care if you hurt them.

@Winterwoollies

RonnieBarkingMad in an earlier post of yours you mention children coming into the garden uninvited, presumably likening they to cats. Out of interest, do you also advocate ‘humanely’ trapping children and also returning them once their parents are suitably worried?

Hyperbolic but yes. I wouldn’t let a wandering, lost child I found in my garden to toddle out into the street by themselves so I guess you could call it “trapping them” if I blocked them from leaving my house unattended whilst I tried to find his or her guardians. But it’s not the same and you know it. Equally, would you support a young child venture out into neighbours gardens without any adult supervision and let them do what they like?

@hesgotit

RonnieBarkingMad how long would you suggest the OP keeps the cat in the trap?

As long as it took for the message to eventually sink in.

PipGirl404

I'm a cat and dog person, animal person in general and cannot get my head around people not liking animals (looking at you crazy Ronnie)

Crazy because I don’t like cats? You’re levelling that insult at me just because I said I don’t like cats or any other pets? I could understand you calling me crazy if I said I don’t like pets but have loads of them and mistreat them, but all I said was I don’t like pets and therefore don’t own them and don’t want any in my garden.

@PipGirl404

Why not make friends with the cats? Start feeding them ham and slowly invite them into your house...

This is just bizarre. OP doesn’t want the cat in their garden let alone their actual house by feeding it ham.

@Frankenheimer

If there's one thing cheering me up this afternoon, it's knowing that cats have more right to roam than RonnieBarkingMad

I know which I'd rather find in my back garden.

If it wasn’t for the current lockdown I don’t know whether I’d advise you to get out more, or admire that that’s as little as it takes to cheer you up.

@starrysimon

RonnieBarkingMad bloody hell🤣 are you my ex neighbour who put up hideously criminal booby traps on boundary fences for burglars and animals?

No I don’t think so, as I don’t recall anywhere in this thread recommending setting up criminal booby traps for cats or any kind of traps apart from humane ones.

I would hate my neighbours to have a problem with cat poo from our cats - we all have small children so we have child proofed an area of our garden so none of our kids encounter cat poo. If this wasn't working they could just tell me and we'd work something out.

OP has told their neighbour that the cat spikes they put on their fence, at their own cost, in the hope of keeping neighbours cat out isn’t working and was effectively told “its not my problem”. You’re a considerate neighbour with a cat. OP has an inconsiderate neighbour with a cat. So what should OP do? If “just telling you and we would work something out” wasn’t an option? @Hollywhiskey

People who get this upset and worked up about cats going in their garden have a screw loose imo. I don’t like it when birds shit on my car or all over my windows, I don’t like spiders and flies getting into my house, or foxes screaming and waking me up at 2am, but that’s part and parcel of life. You must have a charmed life if some neighbourhood cats coming into your garden is this much of an issue for you.

The law in Scotland is: cats can roam and owners are not legally responsible for the cat’s behaviour.

However, if you put a cat in water (wtf pp?) gently or not, or you hurt it by throwing a shoe at it you could be in trouble.

Cats are part of the urban outdoors - like foxes and pigeons and traffic. If you want to live without them, YOU will have to buy humane anti cat devices. That’s just how it goes.

We had awful problems with cats pooing in our garden, right outside front and back doors and all over the garden. We put metal mesh not spikes along the top of the fence and used wire to plug the holes in bushes etc. Also bought the sonic things which didn’t work for us. BUT was does work is - diluted Flash citrus All Purpose cleaner sprayed around the garden. To start with sprayed it every night now every 3 nights and no more poo. I used to hate having to pick cat shit up before I could go out my house. Good luck and it really works for us

On Gardeners' Question Time, the wonderful Bob Flowerdew always give the following advice to gardeners who complain about neighbours' cats digging, fouling etc: get a dog, preferably a Jack Russell.

I can testify that lakeland terriers work just as well as Jack Russells.

@RonnieBarkingMad would you feed and water the cats while you had them caged for 'however long it takes'?

The only way is to get a dog 🤣 we battled this for years. The neighbourhood cats were always in our garden pooing everywhere even one would come into the house if I left my back door open. Got a dog - haven’t had the problem since.

YANBU though. Not sure what you can do but it’s annoying!

*RonnieBarkingMad how long would you suggest the OP keeps the cat in the trap?

As long as it took for the message to eventually sink in.*

Would you give it food or water?

Luckily the law has punishments for people like you, you won't win and cats will forever freely roam the land!

@atticuslovesscout

RonnieBarkingMad would you feed and water the cats while you had them caged for 'however long it takes'?

I would give it tap water.

No, I would not go out of my way to buy cat food to feed a cat that isn’t mine. As a PP advised, maybe I would feed it ham, if I had any spare, but that’s not my obligation either.

“Maybe I would feed it ham” I actually laughed out loud imagining you feeding the neighbours cat slices of ham and tap water while you hold it hostage in a cage, you’re a wind up merchant surely? 😂😂

@RonnieBarkingMad and yet you would leave it for however long it took? You do know that's animal cruelty? To deprive an animal of food. Thank goodness that you are not going out. You should never be allowed out

So a few things you can't try is spreading coffee on the ground where they poop and pee. Also orange peels are meant to work!

As for the cushions I've heard putting tin foil on surfaces can stop them jumping up. Might be worth a try!!

Who the fuck would kidnap their neighbour's cat and feed it ham in a cage?

At least your user name's appropriate.

I didn’t bring up the feeding a cat ham thing, that was another posters previous suggestion. Find my posts funny, crazy or absurd as you want but not because you think I randomly feed cats ham.

@atticuslovesscout

Thank goodness that you are not going out. You should never be allowed out

If I was that type of poster or bothered by your comment, I’d have reported that to the mods. Thats incredibly OTT and offensive to say simply because I don’t like cats and don’t want them in my garden.

People have taken a hypothetical situation I was asked and have turned it into that I officially starve cats and imprison them in cages and post bits of ham through the cage gaps every now and then.

@RonnieBarkingMad it wouldn't be that wafer thin ham would it? It would be deli "naice" ham surely?

Anyone know how I can deter squirrels? The little sods have dug up my balcony pots - they just hoik out the plants and throw them over the side, and scatter dirt everywhere.

There’s going to be some squirrel gloves made if I catch them.

I don't see the point of cats as pets anyway...and I think it's outrageous that some people think it's ok for their cats to take a dump in other people's gardens!!! Give me a dog any day

People have taken a hypothetical situation I was asked and have turned it into that I officially starve cats and imprison them in cages and post bits of ham through the cage gaps every now and then.

Does following through the logical conclusions of what you're proposing not help you realise how properly batshit is it?

@hesgotit
RonnieBarkingMad it wouldn't be that wafer thin ham would it? It would be deli "naice" ham surely?

If you want an answer to that you’ll have to ask the other poster who suggested feeding ham to the cat the OP doesn’t want in their garden, as a means of becoming friendly with it so said cat feels “welcomed” to walk into OPs home whenever it wants to