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.

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

As a lover of black cats but not a cat owner ... cats will apparently shit where they please, so we're told weekly on MN. Ok I've got that memo loud and clear now.

If the shit has to end up somewhere for someone to dispose of it I see no reason why a cat owner (especially when they know it's their cat) shouldn't have the treats packaged up nicely for them to do something with. She shouldn't have left them where your kids could have found them particularly if they're quite young and wouldn't have known to not open them.

But overall I reckon my compromise is a good one.

Frankly I'd fling them over the fence into the cat owner's garden sans bag.

@RedHeadedChickadee

If you don't want it throwing over your fence, why aren't you going around and picking it up yourself?

As everyone else has said, you should be very grateful she bagged it up, and she is just as entitled to use her garden safely as you think your children are yours!

This.

Technically / legally she is in the wrong.

But morally, they're your cats, your responsibility, if they piss other people off and poo in their gardens, then thats your fault. So take the poo.

I would just tell her to throw it over, but without the bag.

That way its easy to bury / decompose.

There’s zero evidence to suggest that cats are the reason bird numbers and other wildlife are declining. Even the RSPCB says that.

www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/gardening-for-wildlife/animal-deterrents/cats-and-garden-birds/are-cats-causing-bird-declines/