Best cat detterant?

[Heartbeep]

Our neighbours cats keep pooing in our garden. It's quite a small garden, high fence round all sides, we've done a lot of work in it last year & are really looking forward to being able to get use out of it this year. We have a toddler so really really can't tolerate it. They poo on the grass & sit in my raised planter (veggies).

We have water guns at the ready, getting lions roar for the front where our toddler doesn't really play. Thought about spikes for fence, do they work? Any other suggestions that work (apart from get a cat-can't stand them, I'm allergic anyway).

No cat sob stories please, I like animals (I don't eat them!), but can't abide other people's attitudes towards unacceptable pet behaviour, including cat poo in my lovely child friendly garden.

many thanks.

1 a chuffing great dog!
2 a cat of your own.
3 my late father, a research chemist by training, got the kind of vials you pee in when preggers, filled them with ammonia and dug them in around the veg. Works!
4 plastic trellis around beds or pots.
5 thorny branches strategically placed
Are you sure the lawn is cats? They usually bury it. Could be foxes, if so try human hair to deter.

My neighbours cat keeps pooing in my garden too, it doesn't bury it either. I am so sick of it now and like you have been just using scare tactics to get rid of it. I had placed branches etc around over the soil but the wind and rain recently blew them away.

I'm going to watch this thread with interest! My mum had one of those things that makes a noise that only cats can hear and hate so I may go down that route.

Citrus, my cats hate the aroma. Citronella must be similar. Perhaps there are trees or plants that give off similar fragrances that you could plant?
I understand why you don't want the cat visits, but I'm not sure why having a toddler makes cat visits particularly intolerable.
Quick google suggests rosemary, lemon balm, mints, pines & pepper plants all put some cats off.

Toddlers touch everything including piles of shit, that's why! Forgot oil as/eucalyptus. Vials of oblast?

A dog.

ragged you don't understand why I don't want the cat visits because you are a cat owner & lover, I am neither. I am the parent of a toddler who can no longer open the door & let my toddler run free in the garden. I have to inspect for cat shit first, from a cat which is not my responsibility.

As I said in my OP, I don't like cats. I don't want to harm them but I don't want them in my garden. I didn't want this to be a cat versus no cat discussion, I just want them to stop their delightful visits & deposits.

It is definitely the cats I've seen them do it, I understood they tried to bury it too, not these little shitters.

Dog is out, both DH do like animals, we just don't want to have any of our own.

bluebump does your mums sound thingy work?

Lurking for tips, in deep sympathy.

ragged I think I owe you an apology, I just realised you said you do understand why I don't want the visits. Sorry, I'm slightly enraged at the moment. Got back from a 5 day break to find more shit in the garden and two pots that my DD planted that have been upturned much to her distress. I'm just sick of it. We have the perfect garden now which us being spoiled by someone else's pet!

However, yes having cat shit on the grass plus a toddler does not make for a nice play space.

So I'm sorry for ranting

I totally sympathise. I live in a terraced house surrounded by cats. They all shit in my yard. We bought special high pitched gadgets from eBay that worked a treat - cats couldn't bare the noise.

When my kids were toddlers I would regularly lose the plot whilst de-shitting my yard. I would shout "thank you cat owners I am now picking up their shit so my children can play in their garden". Urban cats should be trained to shit indoors so owners can deal with their waste.

Had to pick up a massive dog turd outside my front door the other day too!

raven stupid question but I assume the cat noise thingy isn't harmful to children? Also do they need an electrical supply or just batteries?

DH is on a mission to make a purchase tonight.

drsuess I didn't know that about human hair, we have foxes in the front who surprisingly don't poo in the garden, I'll be emptying my hairbrush in their favourite bushes tomorrow

I sympathise. I hate my own cats going in the garden, so it must be infuriating to have random cats do it.
Ours have litter trays, which they are meant to use, but seem to prefer flowerbeds (including the one that was an indoor only cat until 6 years old...). I've even tried keeping them in until they've just done the business in the tray, but it's not fool proof.
You can buy deterrent sprays from garden centres etc which are basically plant oils that cats dislike the smell of, which I've found quite effective...(I did leave them one bed to use, to stop them going next door - we're not all inconsiderate bs! :) Although most garden poo-ers are strays in my experience.)
Good luck!

Yes, she swears by the noise thing, and I think it takes batteries, at least it's not plugged in anywhere.

mummy I know you're not, my neighbours are, they're right next door, the cats are rarely home, as are the neighbours.

The fox hair thing was Hugh Fearnley witting thingy. He got hand fuls of it from the barber. Can't swear it works.

I don't think the noise is dangerous to children but i know that they may be able to hear it. My DSS used to hear ours when he was about 7 yo.
The best thing we found to stop the neighbours' cats from pooing in our garden apart for DH shooting plastic pellets at them is having planters with a plant called "scardy cat" (Coleus Canina) Available here. They give off a smell that cats don't like and by having them in planters you can move them out of the way when you want to use the bit of lawn or patio and then move them back when you are finished. They're not hardy though so the cats tend to come back during the winter months when the plants have succumed to frost.

The water sprayer things with sensors work quite well too but you have to move them around occasionally as the cats will work out where they can go without setting them off. Our vegetable patch is covered by three of the things pointing at different directions. A bit of a pain when you go to pick some carrots for dinner if you forget to turn them off first. I've been drenched a number of times, but that is still preferrable to finding cat poo among the crops.

Oh, DH also hammered nails so that about 3/4 inch was still sticking up on a gate that the cats tended to jump on top off. That stopped them going that way.

I don't think of myself as a cat lover at all, lol. Am a mere Owner (or owned by, depends who you ask). I couldn't face dog-owning but thought it was good for DC to learn all about cats. I'm horrified to think of my cats shitting in other gardens, I'd love to train them to only poo indoors but they have other ideas, sadly. I'd buy SuperSoakers for any neighbours who asked for help. Luckily neighbours all have at least one messy outdoor pet themselves: dogs, cat, rabbit, chickens.

Toddlers very often live quite peacefully & healthfully with cats, so I just questioned whether they are that incompatible.

bear traps?

seriously though, this is an issue close to my heart at the moment, as our lawn and veg plot seem to be the toilet of choice for all the local shitting felines

we have a sonic cat repeller, which does work for most cats (sadly we have one local deaf twat of a cat who is unrepelled). It does eat batteries, but is worth the expense IMO.

We have netting over all veg plots, and combined with the sonic thing, that has kept them clean - one cat was shitting over the netting for a while, which made steam come out of my ears.

then for the stupid deaf one, we have some cat sticks. see here we have them in the bit of lawn the moron keeps using.

We borrowed my parents dogs for a day,and they pissed all over the lawn, but that made no difference to the cat turd incidence. Garlic powder/gel/spray, all useless. broken pottery, useless, citrus peel, coffee grounds, useless, crumpled up foil, useless.

Good luck.

We have netting over the veggie patches, slate tiles sticking up out of the soil at intervals, spiky plant branches on the soil, the scaredy cat plant (which smells disgusting) and the little blighters still find a square inch of soil somewhere to poo!
Keeping areas planted helps, I have got away with "planting" twigs from trees so they can't assume the position comfortably.
I might try the hair thing and report back.
Apparently olbas oil infused tea bags work, or coffee grounds, I haven't got to that point yet (but may soon, my neighbours have 7 cats)

I've tried the citronella gel stuff & certainly the cats don't like it, but it washes away so fast when it rains. Planting spiky plants & filling in gaps wherever possible also helps, but I lost some plants due to frost so there are new gaps appearing all the time!

Cocoa mulch sounds good, I might try that.

Definitely get foxes in the garden but not sure how their poo is different, is it more like dog poo? The foxes have left chicken bones & bits of chicken skin in my flower beds already

Another cat HATER here with a toddler that loves diggging/ playing in the garden. I never hated cats, was quite happy to co-exist, until we started working on out garden & there was cat-shit everywhere.

Then I had to be tested for toxiplasmosis as there was too much fluid on my unborn baby's brain & I realised my arse-hole neighbours have bought 2 cats... they don't have a garden!! So quite happily bought 2 cats for everyone else to deal with their shit!

I'd merrily take an air-rifle to them, (I don't have one & wouldn't really) as I've just found another fresh pile of shit right next to my blueberry bush.

Why do people buy such an anti-social animal? Will be purchasing cat-sticks and sonic repeller, begrudgingly. Why should I have to pay for them?

Sorry that was a mega-rant. Blame preggo hormones at 39+2 wks. Still pisses me off having to clear it up though.