Neighbour throwing cat poo into my garden

[anticatwoman]

I think my cat hating neighbour has thrown bagged cat poo into my back garden. It would be cat poo from my cats who like to shit in her lovely lovely garden.

I have two children under three and we were playing in the garden this morning when I spotted the bag (looked like a fragranced sanitary bag) in the top corner of our garden filled with what is most definitely cat turds - although I couldn't confirm if they are from my cats of course.

We've lived here 3 years. Had cats for two. She's a proud gardener and my entitled cats love to shit in her vegetable patch and play on her lawn. I've seen her chasing them off/ throwing water at them, putting chicken wire and spikes on the fence to try and stop them getting over. They enjoy the challenge. If I see them in her garden I try to entice them back to mine with treats. As long as she isn't hurting them I don't mind her chasing them off. Not everyone loves cats and that's fine. It's complicated by the fact the old lady next door again loves my cats and frequently lets them in and spoils them. So our shared neighbour's garden is a passage way to tastier cat food and non stop affection.

My back fence is very tall and has no back access. It backs on to a main-ish road. After my back fence is a little stone wall about a metre tall which is filled with prickly blackberry bushes, then the path, then the road. My point being here is that if a dog walker was going to dump a bag of poo from the main road they could easily toss it into the blackberry bushes and not be noticed rather than throwing it miles over my fence to land in my garden. My other next door neighbour has a scary dog so my cats don't dare visit that garden.

I can't prove it's her but the fact that it's cat poo and where it's landed makes it quite probable. I have an indoor and outdoor litter tray but cannot control where they roam.

Whilst I sympathise it's annoying for her, I'm not breaking any law whereas I think she is by throwing things into my garden? If she's going to the trouble of bagging it why not just bin it instead of acting out of spite?

What should I do? Clear it up and forget it? Wait to see if more shows up? Loudly proclaim in the garden that I'm checking cctv for the culprit? Ask her directly? I've clearly and calmly explained to my cats not do do it anymore and am hopeful the message has got through.

Hope you take her some flowers too because cat shit is revolting and she's clearly upset and fed up of your cats shitting in her garden. Glad you came to an friendly agreement though

Your cat shitting on her get makes it inedible.

Geez - how repugnant to force a neighbour to pick up your pets shit every day!

You need to apologise for inflicting your responsibility on her.

I've put up those plastic spikes, guess what they still walk over it! What a waste of £30 and my time putting them up.

I bought a sonic deterrent another £30, doesn't do anything to stop them.

So now I'm already £60 out of pocket and still they come and poo everywhere.

I've spend £10 on a wbole lot of veg strips, next day, cat has been in and dug them up and poo in the box, despite me covering it with netting it pulled it off. Had to get rid of all the veg id planted and change the soil and get new soil and new veg strips

Why should a person have to put up with this. Its isn't a small nuisance. Its costing money and time!

And cat owners just don't care.

The irony is OP is complaining about bagged cat poo in her garden and she owns the flipping cats. Don't you see OP if you don't even like finding your own cats poo in your garden why should your neighbour, at least you don't have to pick it up and bag it.

Ffs

@scochran

My neighbours are keen gardeners so I've put inward angled fence top round my garden to keep my 2 in. Made it from brackets and chicken wire. Not expensive. We are on busy road as well and don't want them causing accidents with their poor road sense.

This is what everyone should do.

It's neglectful and unneighborly to let cats roam.

Offer to get in and clean your cats shit up yourself?

@SchrodingersImmigrant

As I said on another thread. People should catproof fences like they dog proof them so cats stay on their land. Simple as that. And I actually really like cats and dogs.

I'm in the US and while we have a lot to be embarrassed about here, I'm glad to say that letting cats roam freely becoming socially and in some areas legally unacceptable.

It's just so irresponsible and bad for wildlife. Indoor cats are perfectly happy and if you want to take them out, use a harness and leash.

@Sootybear

OP you know your cat poos in your nextdoor neighbours garden. Just go round, offer to clear it up. Your neighbour should have spoken to you about the problem rather than chuck it over the fence, but you could sort this out by communication. My old cat who never goes anywhere poos in my garden and everyday I go out there and clear it up, plus all the other cats poo. I don't know who's cats but tbh it's better than the dog poo left on the pavement outside my old house, ready for stepping in whenever anyone came round. Anyway my garden has fox poo, hedgehog poo, all sorts. It's life. Just to add if you feed your cat decent food their poo is not so nearly as offensive.

It's not just a matter of clearing it up. The digging and scratching in the flower beds is disruptive. As a gardener I would trap the cat and teach the owners a lesson.

Absolutely no response from the OP! 😁

It's just so irresponsible and bad for wildlife. Indoor cats are perfectly happy and if you want to take them out, use a harness and leash

Ha ha, what do you propose doing about a cat that bolts out the door every time it's opened and jumps out of a tiny window?

@scochran do you mind posting a pic of what you did so I can see and do the same.

I'd really appreciate it

Jesus, there’s a lot of unhinged posters on this thread
All seem to have degrees in cat ownership too!

@MeltdownSurprise

Yes *@Flumps44* they were once wild animals but as wild animals they would have huge territories and would have completed with other wild cats which would have kept numbers low. This is the case with all wild animals. There is a limit to how many can exist in a given area. However, there is no limit to how many domestic pet cats can live in a given area because they are not competing for food or territory. The only limiting factor is how many cats a household choses to buy. This is why they pose such a huge threat to wildlife.

Competing with other cats doesn’t keep their numbers down, only spaying and neutering does that! On our travels a few years ago, there were at least 50 cats in one small area near our villa and many, many more around the complex. If cats were not domesticated and spayed/neutered, we would be literally over-run with cats, which is a problem in many foreign countries, where pet ownership is rare.

Do your cats have a litter tray op? And /or somewhere in your garden wheee they can go? That's what I do with mine to encourage them not to do it elsewhere.

I had a neighbour who did this - and while sympathetic to her not liking cats, the other neighbours that backed onto her garden had 4 cats and they'd been shitting in all our gardens for years, but she took to throwing it over my fence as she's decided it was my two ( she subsequently proved she didn't even know what mine looked like).

I'd suggest keeping them in for a week or so and get them used to using an indoor litter tray. And if your neighbours are generally nice people then offer to buy some of the gel stuff that puts them
Off.

Just pick bag up and throw into bin. I have 5 cats and 4 go outside to toilet through cat flap. 1 cat uses indoor litter tray. We have a large garden and DH keeps corner dug over with cat litter thrown over top each week. I have seen cats using this area as toilet. Try to make effort to direct your cats to poop in your own garden.

Had I waited for the advice of MN I'd be posting letters through every door on the road by now offering to pick up poo on behalf of all the cat owners in the vicinity

Yes, that is what you should be doing.

@fixthebone, birds are more likely to drink your antifreeze. Cats like cat milk.

You're all mad.

This is MN thing. Abit like disliking en-suite bathrooms.. also a MN thing.

Although some of these responses are simply unhinged. And I shouldn't have to say this but there is no excuse for animal abuse. Not ever.

The worst a cat can do is shit in your garden. This is why there are no laws around controlling pet cats. It's hardly crime of the century and I don't think it permits so much hate and rage. That's why I think you're all mad.

There is probably a variety of shit all over your garden. Your garden is outside... You cannot micro manage an outside space in the way that some of you are seeking to do. Perhaps bring your outside garden inside?

And no, I don't have a cat. I'm allergic.

Offer to do a daily poo pick in her veg plot / flower beds in the short term. (Cat poo in the veg plot is a real risk to her health if she eats her produce).
Longer term, talk to her about how to deter the cats going in her garden. Offer to buy a SuperSoaker / sonic cat thingy / lion poo etc to help her to keep your cats away from her garden.
I'm a cat-lover and get that cats will roam but you really do need to show willing to avoid them bothering her.

It’s the one thing that frustrates me, as a dog owner I pick up, rightly, after my dog

Cat owners don’t and are happy for cats to shit anywhere but their gardens, I hate finding cat poop in my front garden ( they don’t come in the back, the dog scares them off)

So either keep them as indoor cats, or get them to poo in your garden, why should your neighbour have to put up with it, they shouldn’t

You could offer to go round and pick it up yourself

Why don't you offer to buy her these?
They keep my neighbours cats out of my lovely garden (I honestly cried when they started shitting in my lovely new planters)

Pestbye® Battery Operated Motion Activated Waterproof Cat Repellent - Quick Fix Ultrasonic Cat Scarer with Ground Stake - Set of 2 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FXSU2WK/ref=cmswwrcppapifabccN0NCKD7FD417KVXGYHJK?encoding=UTF8&psc=1

@supernova89 the worst a cat can do is kill innumerable numbers of small animals and birds. The shit in the garden in just the icing on the cake.

I like animals. I like cats. Unfortunately, the mad density of cats in urban neighborhoods is bad for the rest of the animals, as well as often unpleasant for neighbours. They're not native and we already are losing enough songbirds. I'm with the people who think that the UK would be a better place with far more cats neutered and the majority of new kittens in urban environments raised as indoor cats.

(and while I personally just scoop up.the poo and feel grumpy at the 4 people on the street with 10 cats between them, I can't entirely blame the poo-chucker).

Think yourself lucky it didn't come through the letterbox. Your neighbour has behaved reasonably. She even bagged it for you. I wouldn't.

I think your neighbour has been more than accommodating, even to bring you flowers. Your cats, your responsibility.