Ask neighbour to relocate cat scarer as the noise is so annoying?

[CableCar]

Our neighbours dislike it when our cat goes into their garden, because it's infringing on their own cats territory. Fair enough. They've never addressed this with us, but have put an electronic cat scarer in their garden to deter our cat from going in their garden, but the problem is that it goes off ALL THE TIME as it's obviously motion activated, so beeps the entire time plants move in the wind. They hardly ever use their garden, but we do as the kids are young, so hear it constantly. I can even hear it while I'm inside with the windows open! It's supposed to be a frequency that humans can't hear, but we all can - and every time we have friends over people ask what the tinnitus-like noise is. I wouldn't mind if it only went off when required, but it is almost constant and has been for months now. It ran out of battery at one point, which was great! But it's obviously got new batteries now...

AIBU to ask them to move or remove it because the noise is a bother? Or AIBU because my cat going in their garden is the problem in the first place? Help!!

I don’t think you can reasonably ask them to remove their cat deterrent until you have ensured your cat stays in your own garden.

This.

And please absolve yourself of the notion that "well we use our garden more often than they do". So what? We have an arsehole Bengal that comes into our garden. The fucker pisses me off even when I'm in the house and I can see it. If I wanted a cat in my garden, I'd get my own cat.

You aren't more deserving of the exterior world! Maybe they don't go out as much because of your cat.

We’ve got cat scarers because there’s about 30 cats who live on our estate and we don’t want them in our garden. If our neighbours moaned about them we’d tell them to keep their cats out of our garden, but they won’t do that so we’ll keep the scarers.

They've got it at the wrong pitch. If humans can hear it, cats won't be bothered.

My neighbour had one that drove me insane. And I was in my 40s so not like I had high pitched hearing. He was deaf so was oblivious. I used to tell him to change the setting, as I think he had it on the 'test' setting that you use to check if it actually works. He would always revert it back at some point though to the audible tone.

We didn't even have cats in neighbouring gardens, he wanted to protect his veggie patch from the occasional visiting interloper. They should be banned, they are anti-social.

I had to ask my neighbour to remove hers. It was an extremely high pitched, constant beeping. I couldn't go out in my garden due to it.
She was mortified when I said, she couldn't hear it, said she was too old 😂

Stop your cats from wandering (look up protectapet, the site of the shed is not a reason to allow them to wander).

then once you’ve stopped giving them a reason for using a cat scarer, you can ask them to remove it.

you cats will be safer and healthier if it has access to outside space but without the danger if traffic and other cats, and your neighbours will be relieved.

Everyone wins.

The only thing the cat scared do is annoy the humans. The cats just go round. Someone near me had one and it was so loud that just walking past set it off along with cars driving past. Cats didn’t give a flying f**k and carried on as normal.

it got accidentally damaged on purpose one night after numerous complaints by neighbours. Replaced. Then got stolen.
it kept waking someone’s baby up as if a butterfly farted in the middle of the night it went off like a klaxon.

If you can hear it it’s not set up properly and not doing its job at all the volume control is not an audible thing it’s to regulate the setting to deter the cat in question although coffee grinds and orange peel around their garden will be far kinder to their cat who will be getting traumatised by the scarer infringing its territory far more than your cat as cats are actually social creatures I have 32 …. If the want the cats separate then cat roof netting is a much better solution for animal welfare reasons

This is slightly off the topic but I don’t understand why they have a cat scared if they have a cat themselves?

I can see why they want to keep your cat out of their garden but doesn’t the thing scare their own cat as well? How does their cat get use of their garden? Do they give it ear plugs or something 😂

Cat proof fencing

https://protectapet.com/pages/cat-fence

Or alternatively build a catio

My inlaws had a thing like this which the kids could hear and it really upset them. On investigation we found that the device had 3 frequency settings and one of the 3 was actually silent to everyone. Ask them if their device has a different frequency setting. It's fair enough for them to want to discourage non-human annoyances but it's unreasonable for them to use a frequency that humans can hear and it's totally ok for you to stand up for your own rights to enjoy your garden even if it is your cat who is the target. Your own cat equally has the right to enjoy your garden so they shouldn't be using something that also makes your garden an unwelcome environment for your cat. They should get something different whose effect can be limited to just their property rather than having a range that extends across yours too.

That catio is so cute I'm almost tempted to get a cat or two just so I have an excuse to build one with catwalks and steps to climb the wall. With a blind dog who's never lived with a cat, though, that wouldn't be a good idea.

I'm also confused about how OP's neighbours thought the cat scarer would deter the OP's cat but not bother their own. And once they saw neither cat was affected, why keep it? Could there be other cats in the area that it's successfully keeping away?