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 idea that cats keep rats and mice away is laughable, our neighbour has 4 cats and we make sure to always have poison in our loft or the mice quickly become a problem when the come in. Another neighbour had rats under their decking.

The cats round here just kill baby birds, decapitate slow worms and kill frogs and voles. It's just horrible. They also dig up my vegetable patch to shit in it which is vile. I've never known cats to effectively bury their poo.

Unfortunately people with cats generally have a huge sense of entitlement as you can see from this thread OP.

I would hope it was clear what I meant by the word wildlife.

Cats are not domesticated or trainable in the way dogs are.

Cats kill birds and under uk law are free to roam without restriction. Yes, it's understandable that you don't want cats coming into your home, but the solution to this is to keep windows etc shut or only open so far so that the cats can't come in.

Was your house empty for a while? Sounds like it’s become their terf so to speak.

Whenever you are not actively in the garden have some motion sensor sprinklers. Spray with a hose/water pistol when out not next to you need to wet them.

YANBU OP but it may not go well for you here.

Some people have posted on here that they have had success with automatic water sprayers. They sound like quite a lot of effort to set up and leave permanently attached to a hose.
I have had success with a super soaker that was half filled with vegetable oil and half filled with water. The cat didn’t come back. Some cat owners on here expressed outrage at the idea but more reasonable ones thought that it wouldn’t harm their cats. The cat was still wandering around the next day, just not in my garden.
I have planted lillies but that won’t work when the flowers are not in bloom. The best think I have done is to make sure that there are no gaps in the fence.

This comes up regularly and cat owners will throw their hands up and say “well what can you do?” They will also say that cats bury their shit, but they don’t. The answer is to keep your cats inside, or build a cat run. Personally, I made sure each cat shit found it’s way onto the neighbours patio. Every. Single. Time.

If you want someone to stop letting their cat into your garden, the quickest most effective way to get them to keep it away is to give it a new colar with your address on it and feed it a few times.

Outdoor cat people feel simultaneously entitled to expect their pet to be welcome in your property WHILST ALSO will go to war and great lengths to stop you "stealing" their cats!

Try it

I bet it works

I really feel for you, OP. I can't believe the way that people just shrug and say "That's the way it is". On some threads you even get people coming on and saying that no-one should be planting anything in their garden that could upset a cat's stomach, just in case a cat gets in there. Well, this is where I will reply with a shrug and say "not my problem, that's the way it is."

I am sick of kneeling down to do some weeding in my garden and finding cat shit in the beds. It absolutely stinks, and what am I supposed to do with it? Why should I have to clear it up? Also there is quite often a smell of cat piss by our front door, turns my stomahc.

I've lost count of the number of plants that have been ruined by cats wandering over them squashing them or lying on them.

Well that's the law.

You are ignoring the easy fix

You need to squirt them with water every time they come in your garden.

Don’t grow nepeta

Scatter chillies

Squirt with water

Do you have high fence panels all round your own garden? Just cat proof it yourself.

Buy 3ft high mesh fencing with holes small enough that a cat cant get through. I have stout plastic covered mesh with big gaps but still not big enough a cat can get through.

Attach to the side of the fence with screws and washers or horizontal batons of wood so it’s sticking up by two feet. Bend over the two feet so it’s a horizontal L shape with no support right along the length of your fence at the same height as the top of your fence.

Alternatively bend it into the L shape before attaching to the fence. Whatever’s easiest for you.

It should stay like that. If a cat tries to climb down it, it will bend and the cat will change its mind as it feels it will fall. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out. Except wildlife. Bend the fence into the right position if it does bend in the wind or a big cat decides to try it’s luck.

Mines held for over a year. No visitors and my own feline has stayed in as the overhang is on our side so it’s defo not escaping.

Because they’re a whole different species? You can’t train a cat like you can a dog!

Cats are legally protected to roam, just a part of life. Nothing any owner can do so down to you.

Your DH should aim for them and give them a soaking, especially as weather is warm. Or scatter used filtered coffee grounds around the bird bush.

Cats are legally protected to roam, just a part of life. Nothing any owner can do so down to you.

Your DH should aim for them and give them a soaking, especially as weather is warm. Or scatter used filtered coffee grounds around the bird bush.

I rather have cats jumping in my garden instead of kids footballs.

We sprinkled vinegar everywhere when we first moved in and that, along with the our kids often playing in the garden, seems to have deterred them from using our garden as their toilet

Given your user name, I am not surprised.
You can just throw footballs back. They are not nasty and smelly and they don’t kill birds.

how do you propose the neighbour is stopping the cats from coming? Having a word with them?

I totally understand it is annoying but ultimately, loads of people keep cats who go outdoors and if you have a garden, it's just part of that garden package that you may get cats.

There are battery operated sonic devices. I would get one of those. Cats don't like the noise bit the frequency is too high for human ears. We did that when we had a similar issue. But it's today bonkers to expect the neighbour to stop them coming.

If you have very young children, you have to be careful with high pitched noises as they can often hear them. A friend got one of these for their vegetable patch. It stop the cats but their teenager complained. The younger the child, the more high pitched sounds they can hear.

Genuine question - what would you like your neighbours to do? Seriously.

What do you expect the neighbours to do actually. Cats have their own set of rules and don’t tend to listen to humans very well

We understand you don’t like the cats in your house and garden. But what you haven’t said is what do you expect your neighbours to do about it?

We had cats in our garden when we moved in. I throw a large bottle of water and soaked one. They never come in now. Throwing the water near them won’t work.
I’m an animal lover, but I didn’t want cat shit all over my garden.

Cats 🐈 😻 are free spirits. I don't really think there's much their people can do.

Honestly this is why I don't think people should have cats as pets! I really do like them but they cause so much destruction to wildlife and like you we have tons coming into our garden, more than I can even count. We constantly have to shoo them away before they start pooing and we recently went away for a couple of weeks and I had to go out to the garden and clear up 30 cat poos before my kids could go out and play! I don't even know if I got it all as we keep a few areas of longer grass for wildlife