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]

Yes, I think people forget sometimes the fundamental reason that we domesticated cats in the first place. Apparently they were absolutely crucial to the development of civilisation because it depended on being able to grow a surplus of grain, which would all have been eaten by pests if it wasn't for cats.

The only time I have ever experienced mice in the house was the couple of years when I was between cats.

Re fleas, they get resistant to it . What works one year doesn't work the next. It's not just with cats.

My cats cry and perform a starving kitten show too, pretty standard cat behaviour, you missed Cat 101 introduction to cats class😂

You can get a company to come out (like Protect Pet) and cat proof, or order a kit and do it yourself. Several companies in the UK (more pre Brexit but now shopping costs etc don't make it viable).

Cats are amazing, you are just not a cat person.

What have the cats done to your roof?
Did they pull off the tiles or dig up the felt?

Get a water pistol and have real fun wetting the cats. Do it a few times and they will not be back.

I suspect the feeling is mutual.

No, that's actually a statistic (a massaged one, at that) based on North American research and constantly trotted out by the 'Cats should only be indoors' crowd over here now. We don't have a large and nation-wide population of huge raptors that will predate on cats (unless you live in the Hebrides or similar and I've not heard my Hebridean friend mention cats being carried off by Golden Eagles). We don't have bears, wolves or mountain lions. We don't have gun-toting psychotic maniacs who like taking pot-shots at outdoor cats. We don't have venomous snakes that will attack cats (have never heard of an adder attacking a cat, though I suppose it's possible). We don't have scorpions (well, only a few isolated populations in the south and they're not very dangerous ones) or venomous spiders.

Outdoor cats in the UK can, and do, of course, get unlucky and get knocked down. But I would prefer to train my cat to be as car-aware as possible, choose where to own a cat (not on a busy road) and allow the cat its freedom, than have a highly stressed indoor cat who's constantly fixated on going outside.

I currently have both cats on house-arrest because one of them has an injury on his foot and can't get it infected. Both are being complete arseholes today as they're desperate to be outside!

I love chatting to neighbourhood cats. They all have their own characters.

It is annoying when they poop in my garden. I've never had them disturb plants though.

Get motion activated cat deterants and sound deterrents on amazon. And buy a water gun and use it by squirting near the cats when in your garden.
I have cats but can imagine it is not fun in your situation with a small garden surrounded by cats.

You know this is an entirely cultural perspective. One I shared but I moved to oz two decades ago and was met with horror and told I must not care about my cats lives and safety or that of wildlife there. I had never thought of it that way.

Interestingly aussies don't care about etiquette of cats shitting in neighbours gardens - its all about the cats life, and the effect on wildlife.

I dont know what I think now. I can kinda see both sides - having lost cats to car accidents or they just disappear, I am tempted to keep them indoors, but then you get the wailing at the door which feels cruel. Is a far longer but imprisoned life better than a short life full of adventure???

You'd be alright with mine OP. They go out and then come home to poo in the litter tray. I'm sure they do it just to wind me up.😃

At least they're better than my neighbours 2 huge dogs who do enormous poos all over the yard which rarely gets cleaned up. I have to play dodge the poo when I go to the bins as we have access over the yard for this.🤑

My cat shits in my garden, my greenhouse and his litter tray. I know it's him because I see him do it via my cctv.

Hard truth...if it's cruel to keep them in but you can't stop them causing issues for neighbours, they are unsuitable as pets then.

I understand your frustration OP. I wouldn’t like cat shit in my garden either.

I have two cats and I have spent £2.5k on a large catio. The main reason I did this is because my local Facebook page is post after post about missing cats or cats being knocked over and killed in road accidents. My cats can be annoying little buggers but I do love them so I thought it was worth spending money to keep them off the road and out of danger generally. The added bonus is that they can’t piss my neighbours off. I have a cat flap into the catio so they can come in and out as they please.

I also think, having spoken to other cat slaves that building a catio or cat proofing the fence is becoming a lot more popular recently.

Agreed. We have a dog. I’d be mortified if it sh** on someone’s garden.
we used to live next to someone who had 4 cats and they use my garden as a toilet. When we moved here and realised no neighbours had cats, I was overjoyed no finding random cat sh** when I’m doing my weeding

Cats do have a legal right to roam in the UK. This stems from the 70’s when they were designated ‘free spirits’ so they are allowed by law to go anywhere they please.
They’re also protected by law in that it is illegal to deliberately harm a cat including using deterrents that could cause harm.

HOWEVER, cat owners also have a duty to take reasonable care to ensure their cats do not injure people or damage property. If you can prove which cats it is and that property damage is definitely occurring and is caused by a cat or cats, then you might have a case, especially if you can prove the owner has not done their due diligence.

My two cats go outside but use indoor litter boxes for toileting because that’s how I trained them.

So what do you propose then? Euthanise all cats? 🙄

Hard truth - you live in a world with other people and living creatures. You can’t expect to have everything to your liking I’m afraid. A little tolerance goes a long way - You should try it.

I find all the dog shit in our local park annoying and I don’t especially enjoy walking past the bins that smell of dog shit when I take my kids to school in the morning. That’s life. I don’t go around proclaiming that dogs aren’t suitable as pets though.

I don't understand. Do you mean 'caring for' a cat equals keeping it indoors? And outdoor cat owners do not perform any care for their cats?
What do you think about outdoor cat owners who feed their cats, de-flea them, get them neutered, take them to the vets, etc? Is that 'care'? or no?

YANBU. As a reformed long time cat owner, I now find it completely shameful that would to obtain a cat or kitten, then cry when it came to some harm after I’d let it out of the door. And all while knowing they’re awful for wildlife. I look back and wonder where I got off with that attitude. And of course they would toilet in my neighbours garden and I’d have the absolute cheek to say that was just the cat’s nature when they have nothing to do with nature in the UK whatsoever except to destroy it. And to those of you who say it’s cruel to keep a cat indoors, I don’t disagree with you at all.

@airportfloor I fully agree with you. I'm fed up of cat owners who loves their "independent " pets shitting wherever they want, whenever they want. If you want an "independent " pet that shits where it wants get a goldfish

…to say that was just the cat’s nature when they have nothing to do with nature in the UK whatsoever except to destroy it.
That is an egregious misuse/misunderstanding of the phrase 'that was just the cat’s nature'. I assume you did it deliberately?

The majority of cats won't kill rats because they are too well fed and too big.

Think about it. Rats are often hungry, wild and aggressive. No cat is going to take them on unless it is pretty hungry too.

Mice are a different story because they are much smaller and the cat completely dominates them. The risk to the cat is low.

Cats generally are not useful to society. Maybe they were in the middle ages when they were half feral and half starved and had no choice but to go for rats or die.

Yeah, I'm not keeping him indoors, but I have told him NOT to go next door to shit.

I find it really odd that the cats are being so destructive. I'm not saying I don't believe it, I just think it's genuinely strange.
They do poo everywhere, yes, but ripping up planters is bizarre...
Can you get those scare cat garden accessories, or put egg shells or other things down that they hate to deter them

Why do some people insist on bringing children into the debate? Cats are not humans. Humans are not cats.

They won't kill the adult rats in general, but will clear out a nest of young pretty efficiently. And they're a general deterrent.