To not want neighbours cats in my garden?

[Rainbow3210]

Our neighbour has cats and they keep coming into our garden. They have also made their way into our house several times through the window and back door. I’m currently pregnant and have two young children. The children get upset when they come in as they don’t understand why they come and go (they want them to stay to play with). We have a lot of songbirds birds that sit in a bush in our garden and the cats are constantly trying to hunt the birds.

The cats are also doing the toilet in the garden which my husband has to clean with a hose. I believe it’s not entirely safe to clean up cat mess when pregnant.

I spoke to the neighbour and asked if they could stop the cats coming into my house and garden. They said there is nothing that can be done.

Is it unreasonable that this is bothering me?

The black ones are stunning.

10/10 recommend. A dramatic addition to any garden

Do you mind me asking approximately how much you spent overall? Before accepting defeat.

If you get some empty steradent or fizzy vitamin c tubes, sink them in your borders, fill with ammonia this will keep them away and they’ll go elsewhere once they have had a sniff.

or borrow a dog for a while.

Step 1: Leave cheap food out for cat that’s in your garden anyway

Step 2: Rename cat Mr Cuddlepants

Step 3: Take photos of cat enjoying snacks and cuddles, maybe add a bow to one ear for snaps

Step 4: Post snaps on community Facebook group, under the heading ‘Me and my best friend. Love this man visiting’ or ‘Look who came in for a free snack…Mr Cuddlepants!’

Step 5: Routinely call Mr Cuddlepants name out at the same time each day - whether the cat comes or not is irrelevant

Step 6: Ignore neighbours requests to stop feeding, cuddling and posting about said cat, or respond with ‘but he loves me’

Step 7: Do not attempt to keep cat or hurt cat. This technique is to deal with the neighbour and not the cat.

When all else fails, animal abuse is the way to go.

Well done.

Regardless of whether you do or don't like cats, it's legal to own a cat in this country and it's generally accepted that cats, by nature, like to roam and to hunt. Most people agree that it's cruel to keep a cat confined indoors or to a small outdoor space, hence why, excepting the odd pedigree who is kept under lock and key, cats are allowed to roam free, unlike dogs.

They also do not follow instructions so can't be taught not to go into a particular garden or to stop hunting.

Unless you're advocating for a cat-free country (in which case, dogs also need banning since they are a far bigger nuisance) you have to accept that they will come into your garden.

You might ask the neighbours to attach bells to their collars so the birds at least get a warning.

and if you weren't so snotty that would helpt too.

I am advocating cat owners cat proofing their gardens.

Am going to start gifting them to my neighbours, bit of a change from the wines n candles we swap at Christmas. Different and interesting.

We'll have a beautiful gothic sea of em up and down the road by next year.

Yeah it's cruel to get a pet that you don't personally have a sufficient enriching space for.

There is the option to just not. Or chose a pet more suitable to your property.

Cause you know, you just never know what kinda neighbours you might have. They might be like me!

🤣 I love that cat owners are still not ready to admit that even if a cat attempts to dig and cover, its still on the surface of your flower beds.

We can't control cats, that's life but don't kid yourself that they're not causing other people issues by shitting and spraying everywhere. They absolutely are!

This solved our problem with cats pooing in the garden. Had to move it a few times to get the right position. It's solar powered and you can recharge it as well. It's been brilliant and had no cat poo for 5 months now.
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DQ3VJGZ9?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_3

YABU sorry, as this is just life in Britain, unless you live in the middle of nowhere with no close neighbours who have cats 🤷‍♀️. Cats are free to roam. Personally the only time we don’t get cats in the garden is when we have a dog or cat ourselves (as even if your dog or cat isn’t in the garden at the time, most cats sense there is one in the home and stay clear). Personally I miss watching all the different cats that have stopped coming now 🤣- I find the sticky pigeon poo everywhere in the garden since they left, far worse with my toddler 😡

But since I assume you don’t want to get a dog or a cat yourself (and therefore only have to deal with your own animals mess) your only alternative is to try to cat proof the garden - you can buy a variety of things for the top of fences (such as nasty looking plastic spikes that make it uncomfortable to climb over, or mesh) and hope for the best. But cats are crafty creatures and if there is available territory ie. not “owned” by another cat or a dog, then they are going to want to try to claim it, whatever the human deterrent.

The RSPCA don’t approve walking cats on leashes for numerous reasons.

Cats are CLEAN
Every poo is always a fox poo. Always. Even if it looks and smells nothing like a fox poo and you saw the cat squatting in that very spot

Even if your neighbours cats were no longer around, other cats will loiter around your garden. I have two or three pass through my garden regularly and I've no idea where they live.

But you know how a great many people get rid of annoying insects, don't you? I'm not necessarily saying it's right, but it's what people do - and it works.

Insects are not owned by anybody, but if they stray where they are not welcome, they get blatted.

Dogs are owned by somebody, and it is incumbent on the owner to take responsibility for their pet and keep them under control.

Cats fall awkwardly between the two - they matter enough to their owner that they don't want them to be killed when they continually step out of line (and I'm not for a single moment suggesting that they should be killed at all), but when it comes to preventing them from being a constant nuisance to neighbours, they suddenly don't matter enough to their owners, who will shrug and pretend that there's nothing they can do to stop it.

Said cat owners who shrug are always quick with suggestions of expensive and/or time consuming 'fixes' for YOU to take to stop THEIR cat being a nuisance.

Here's a simple one: if your NDN has complained to you about your cat coming into and pooing in their garden, why don't YOU wait there watching it constantly, with a supersoaker ready to deploy the moment they start to venture next door. If it's a good suggestion for them to do for somebody else's pet, surely it's good enough for you to spend the time doing for your own pet, eh?

It's cruel for them not to be allowed to roam. We know that animals in zoos need a lot of space and we worry about them not getting it, but then we advocate for people keeping their cats in a garden.

The law is that you can own a cat, and as I said, most cat-owners are not going to treat them in a way they think is cruel.

I think it would be more accurate to say, "You have to compromise when living".

The UK countryside is filled with feral cats. We have one lounging in our garden right now. He's fourth generation at least. His feral mother and grandmother both sat in the same spot.

Well said. As an outdoor cat owner this could have been written by me.

I’ve seen them physically do it but cat owners know best! My grass was covered with the filthy stuff, 5 cats and that was just from one house and I had a lot of grass. It would have cost me thousands to cat proof my garden. Covering the holes in the huge hedge would also have prevented hedgehogs too as another poster said. Impossible.

I wish the local cats here buried it!
We get it on our drive & on our front lawn. 🤢

We live in an area with loads of cats, I don’t mind them but I do get pissed off with my front garden being a toilet area, and when they decide to walk on my garden cushion covers with muddy feet! . We’ve also got scratch marks over a new fence and on one of our cars which a local cat uses to get over a fence.

I know cats wander but it doesn’t mean we all want them in our garden and definitely not in the house (although my dogs would put a very fast stop to that!).

You can buy cat alarms that only cats can hear and prickly trim that goes across the top of your fences.

Well said.