AIBU?
Neighbours cat sh*ting in our garden
Sasha818 · 20/09/2022 13:37
Does anyone know how I can stop this from happening pls? I have a toddler who loves to be outside playing in the garden. Next doors cat for months now has decided our garden is it’s toilet.
There is sh*t everywhere around my child’s toys, on our cobblestones just everywhere around the grass in the garden really. My partner is picking it up every night.
they have 2 small kids 2 big dogs and artificial grass so I’m guessing that’s why the cat comes to ours (was told they don’t usually toilet on artificial grass?)
please give me some tips to get this creature out of our garden without me constantly being afraid of my child falling or rolling in it’s poo! It’s also a very scruffy outdoor cat.
Meseekslookatme · 20/09/2022 13:45
You can't.
People will be along soon with ridiculous recommendations like garlic pellets, sonic scarers, citrus, eggshells etc.
NONE WORK.
Some will insist it's hedgehogs and foxes even if you've seen it with your own eyes etc.
Unfortunately you will have to live with the consequences of your neighbours lazy pet ownership.
I gave up after having my lovely garden ruined by cats. Totally gave up.
JudithHarper · 20/09/2022 13:46
If there is 'crap everywhere' that gets picked up every night, that isn't just one cat. Maybe not even a cat at all.
Pr1mr0se · 20/09/2022 13:47
The only way to try and stop cats shitting in your garden is to get a cat yourself.
ThisisCollie2022 · 20/09/2022 13:48
Our cat shits in our raised flower bed and gives you eye contact while doing so. I decided to leave it there for him so we know where's he's been.
Both cats from next door though, comes over and shits in the middle of our lawn. Even if you're nearby.
No shame whatsoever. 🤣 drives me mad but what can you do?
abovedecknotbelow · 20/09/2022 13:49
Are you sure it's the cat and not foxes. Cats like to bury their shit, I don't like cats so not automatically defending them but the foxes here love to park their shit on things.
Sasha818 · 20/09/2022 13:49
@JudithHarper at least 3 a day. I just caught it an hour ago and ran out and it jumped the fence. That’s enough for it to be everywhere when you have a toddler running round (not a big garden either)
@Meseekslookatme I was thinking of getting a water pistol my partners mum had the same issue but I don’t have the time to watch and wait for it at every opportunity
OhmygodDont · 20/09/2022 13:49
Sounds like more than one cat for there to be that much poop each day. Was your house empty for a while before you moved in? Sounds like it became the local litter box. Rather off for it to just be on the grass/cobbles as well rather than hurried but certainly not unheard of but would sound more like territory marking between cats.
Boxofsockss · 20/09/2022 13:50
Cats will shit where they want. Even if your neighbours had real grass, the cat would still go wherever it wanted as that is in their nature. You could try and put in sprinklers which activate when there is movement but other than that I wouldn’t bother
ThisisCollie2022 · 20/09/2022 13:50
Our cat buries his shit (in the raised flowerbed!) but the neighbours two cats don't :(
ChiefPearlClutcher · 20/09/2022 13:50
Nothing works. Only our dog keeps cats out of our garden.
I see them on the ring camera. It’s not a fox/badger/hedgehog whatever and no, they don’t bury it either. Lovely cat shit in my veg garden. I have 5 regular visitors.
Borrow or get a dog.
DahliaMacNamara · 20/09/2022 13:50
The only thing that cuts it down is having a dog around. They're much less likely to wander in for a leisurely crap if there's a narky terrier on the premises. But of course dogs bring their own shit along with them, literal as well as metaphorical shit.
MrsU2022 · 20/09/2022 13:51
You can get alarms to scare them off. My parents have one to stop their neighbours cat shitting on the drive and it works a treat!
Wibbli · 20/09/2022 13:51
@Sasha818 my BIL swore that urinating around the perimeter of the garden works wonders! My DH then did it because we had a cat pooing on our chippings and it never came back!
Sasha818 · 20/09/2022 13:51
@abovedecknotbelow yes I’ve witnessed it. We also have a potted plant that’s now dead because it kept using it as a toilet. Driving me insane
@ThisisCollie2022 I know this is what this cat does! I’m more worried about my toddler running around it 😱
667TheNeighbourOfTheBeast · 20/09/2022 13:51
I get them with a water pistol, one of those big super soaker things. They do still sneak in but it’s more about getting the birds as I have a bird table than shitting. They do shit in my front garden though on the lawn which is annoying. The other possibility is if you have fencing to put some trellis up so it will feel wobbly if they try and get over it or some chicken wire etc on top of fence at an angle if you Google it, I do feel sorry for you as it’s not an easy problem to solve and if you go to your neighbours they will most probably say they can’t do anything about it
DazzlePaintedBattlePants · 20/09/2022 13:52
Jeyes fluid solution sprayed on hard surfaces.
KimberleyClark · 20/09/2022 13:53
Lion poo is supposed to work well. You can buy it online apparently.
StarDolphins · 20/09/2022 13:54
Meseekslookatme · 20/09/2022 13:45
You can't.
People will be along soon with ridiculous recommendations like garlic pellets, sonic scarers, citrus, eggshells etc.
NONE WORK.
Some will insist it's hedgehogs and foxes even if you've seen it with your own eyes etc.
Unfortunately you will have to live with the consequences of your neighbours lazy pet ownership.
I gave up after having my lovely garden ruined by cats. Totally gave up.
Why are the neighbours lazy pet owners? What do you want them to do? Train it to shit on its own garden, have a word & ask it not to do it?
i feel for you OP but I don’t think you’ll easily stop it unless you had a cat or dog of you own.
ThrowingSomeCrumbs · 20/09/2022 13:54
I once lived on an estate and my life was literally made miserable by the local cats. Could leave downstairs windows open if I was upstairs else an unfixed tom would jump in and spray on my furniture and it STUNK. My garden was constantly full of shit because four or five cats used it as their toilet. I had no interest in getting my own cat (and have since discovered this advice is utterly useless and makes no difference). And ended up spending £150 to get rid of the fleas the awful tom cat infested my house with. Nothing works to keep them out. Every other pet you need to keep under control I have no idea why people think it's fine for other peoples pets to ruin your enjoyment of your own property.
YellowTreeHouse · 20/09/2022 13:55
Put the shit back on their doorstep every single time.
Install spikes on your fence.
Hose the fucker when it comes in.
MyNameIsAngelicaSchuyler · 20/09/2022 13:57
Super soaker
hose
citronella pellets on all flower beds
sonar thingy from the RSPB
we’ve mainly fixed it with these. Really feel for you, HATE our neighbourhood cats they should be outlawed. Cannot believe people think it’s ok to have a pet that shits on someone else property. Can only assume they are incredibly self centred. The cats and their owners.
AssemblySquare · 20/09/2022 13:58
If they’re coming over the fence you can get spikes to stop them. When we lived in a more built up area lots of people had them.
My cats bizarrely come home to poo… out for hours in the woods behind our house then home to the litter tray 🤷♀️ They’re too frightened of people to go into other gardens.
KatherineofGaunt · 20/09/2022 14:04
No idea which, if any, method worked for us, but we had issues with next door's cats and they have stopped these past few months.
The trick, apparently, is to prevent them from smelling where they've been to the toilet before. So we have removed whole spaces of earth or dug up squares of lawn around the whole shit and removed them. Then we put down orange peel and I sprinkled chilli and garlic powder (just supermarket jars, nothing fancy) around the area. I think the idea is you do this for two weeks and by that time they've found somewhere else to poo.
We also put up a board on our back fence to block them from being able to walk along our fence from next door, as that seemed to be their way in. We also made sure to scare the cats off any time we saw them in our garden at all so they didn't feel comfortable. DH also got a motion-sensor high frequency thing.
Like I said, no idea if any of it worked, but they've definitely stopped shitting in our garden. Next door once complained to me thatone of their cats had pooed in one of their plant pots. I could only think 'About time they started using their own garden as a toilet!"
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