To think cat ownership should be considered more anti-social than it is

[airportfloor]

I am a single working parent. I live in a terraced house in a middle of the city. Each house on my street and the parallel one has a small yard. I have spent time and money to make my yard as attractive as it can be, putting in borders with a small number of plants, and some pots.

Neighbours on all sides have cats - some have more than one cat each. The problem is for me that cats are taking over my yard.

On a daily basis the cats dig up my planters, putting mud on the floor and pulling out plants. They do this because my border is the hippest place to shit. So now I have a border that on one side is kitchen herbs and the other side mud and cat shit. RANK.

I have to check before I can let my kids play out there because they also like shitting right by my door.

This morning I was greeted with a mass of pigeon feathers that I had to clear up where some unlucky bird saw its fate.

They knock over my pots, causing more mess.

In the summer I can't have my back door open because the cats will walk into my house. I was once in my bed and a cat came in my bedroom. They would come in every time the door was open if I left it. When I wfh with the door open I sit with a small water pistol so I can aim it at the door.

I have very little spare time of money and am furious I have to spend both of them now finding out how I can make my yard seem less desirable to cats, then putting this plan into action.

One of my cat-owning neighbours plays loud music and smokes weed in his yard but his two cats are more annoying than both those behaviours.

I have just seen one of the bastards digging out my borders again and am furious.

AIBU: yes, now you've put it so calmly and succinctly, cats have got a great PR team and people should consider that if they get a cat their neighbours have to put up with their shitty actions which could be mitigated by a nice packet of biscuits at christmas

NOT BU: get over it

[post edited by MNHQ at poster's request]

Why do you think you are more deserving to exist and hamper the lives of cats, OP? Because you're obviously a more superior being? 😳

It doesn’t take a scientific survey to understand a carnivorous predator with the right to roam is problematic in large unchecked numbers.
Cats are lovely animals. There should be less off them as a percentage of uk animals is all.

Nobody owns a cat, cats own us. Do your research.

I agree about exaggeration. I've had cats my whole life, five of them at the same time once. I don't recall any of them ever knocking over a plant, or digging up plants.

As for shitting in gardens, there is far more hedgehog shit in my and my neighbour's gardens than anything caused by the numerous neighbourhood cats.

Yeah I very, very much doubt cats are knocking over plants. They don't have that kind of strength. Would be a wild animal, a fox or something. I genuinely think that people just assume cats are responsible, because their are cats around. There's no logical thinking.

I’ve had 4 cats, none of them have been any good at catching birds. The idea they are decimating the bird population always seems ridiculous. I watched some magpies shouting at my cat today, he was trying to stalk them in full view, zero chance of him catching them.
we do get birds of prey occasionally coming and picking birds up though, and they took neighbours fish from their pond (initially they tried to blame a cat).
I tried to keep the newest one in and he was literally destroying the house with frustration, he’s young and has too much energy and he likes sleeping in the garden. He also still only uses the litter tray for the bathroom.

These are all articles that link to one study, though. It's the study by the Mammal Society that I read a couple of years ago. In fact, looking into it, every reference in every article that you have linked is to this same study- of 87 cats in Hampshire. The aim of this study was to look at the effects of cat predation on the edge of countryside as opposed to urban predation. The results are quite interesting- have you actually read the study? Because I have- twice through now.

The conclusions are that, yes- cats kill a lot of birds. They also kill far more rodents than birds. The question is- does this have any effect on bird populations in the UK? And the answer is- we simply do not know. We do not have that data.

There is one other study that has been referenced, by the University of Sheffield. It found that the presence of cats can stress blackbirds to the point that they feed their young less.

These are two small scale studies. The truth is, we just do not know the effect that cats' predation has on bird populations. More studies need to be undertaken.

What “barbaric history of cat keeping”? They’re my parents’ cats and they weren’t declawed.

Yes, you've gone back to your earlier point. My point, which I think you do understand even if you don't want to acknowledge it, is that it is extremely odd that the RSPB has not commissioned any actual research on the matter, as you and I both know full well that it would reveal that cats kill millions of birds and that has a significant effect on the population. And that is something that we could do something incredibly straightforward about (not allow cats to to kill birds). So please don't now go back to your earlier whataboutery points about how other things also kill birds something something deep sea trawling.
Feel free to look at less compromised information, eg https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/
which has concluded that cats in America kill 2.4billion birds a year.
Feel free to launch a complex argument about US cats behaving differently to UK cats or just acknowledge that domestic cats kill a shit ton of birds and it has significant effect on the bird population.

As if cats had anything like the impact of humans on birds populations. We have destroyed and are still destroying their habitats.

In my lifetime the bird population in London has decimated and it’s nothing to do with cats. Still plenty of pigeons and magpies but fewer sparrows and tits. The swifts and swallows that used to come in the summer don’t come any more.

Cats are really no comparison to human destruction and pollution.

Of all the cats I’ve had in my lifetime, they only very rarely caught birds. Some, never. They were more interested in mice. But even then none of them were really mousers.

A few families with cats have moved into our neighbourhood- no one is happy - families with small kids are complaining about the cat shit in their beds. Elderly lady is complaining about the lack of birds visiting her garden since the cats have arrived and I was not happy with the injuries our dog incurred when a cat came into our garden and my dog chased it. They are not welcome in many people’s garden but we don’t have choice to exclude them.

That’s a massive overestimate based not a live study but simply a review of other studies.

Allegedly 2.4 billion birds a year. Estimated cat US cat population 60-80 million, take a mean of 70.

That works out at 34 birds a year for every single cat. Which is a ridiculous over-estimate.

All the cats I’ve ever owned - some killed none, others killed 1 or 2 in their while lifetimes.

My neighbour's cat can merrily kill one or two a day. That's over 500 a year. I have no idea how you could possibly think a cat would kill 1-2 in their lifetime. It's not like they save it up for a special birthday treat? If they have the opportunity, most of them will.

I am a cat owner (indoor/access to our garden only) and you really made me laugh with ‘hippest place to shit’. So for that YANBU.

Btw on the hunting front, there was quite a recent peer reviewed study into this and the findings were quite surprising. The majority of birds/mice killed were caught by a very tiny elite % of the cat population. Which means a large majority of cats are actually pretty rubbish at hunting (though they’d like to think otherwise). My own is pretty terrible - her conquests so far are one moth and one frog, both of which survived the ordeal and lived on to laugh about her with their friends and family. She’s pretty good at catching pencils though.

Yeah I hear you - the ones round me are an absolute menace….my neighbours then got a dog and the cats seem to have kept away now 😂

And finding a half eaten pigeon I your garden is pretty gross

Maybe because I’ve actually had them. Cats I’ve had have never been very interested in birds nor the cats around me. They like mice and voles. Some liked frogs and fish.

Unless you work from home and are glued to your back windows 24/7 you can’t possibly know the ND cat is catching 2 per day. Even the farm cats I’ve known bring something in a couple of times a week but 2 per day.

Are you allowed to do anything to deter them from being in your garden there?

Cool. Let's ignore the science then! You're definitely right. My neighbour also insists her cats don't catch birds. Because even when she can't see them, she knows what they're doing. Or something.

Love this- it's also essentially the plot of many films 😂 The Grinch, It's a wonderful life, Gran Torino ....

It's like how I'm so glad I tolerated the boy next door learning saxophone and practising early. Now he's left home and my son is learning the trumpet- goodwill banked and being used!

Estimates and speculation is not science.

Your neighbour lives with her cat and you don’t. You apparently know what it’s doing when you can’t see it.

I see it walking across my garden with birds in its mouth.

Every day twice a day apparently, you must hardly have time for anything but cat surveillance.