why do rats/foxes only come to our garden but not neighboring ones?

[petiteHBB]

Hello,

We have found holes/poos in the garden recently. It looks like rats and foxes (might be other animals too, we don't have proof). What is puzzling is that they only come to our garden and make a mess. The nearby gardens are not affected although there are clear assess from the back of the gardens.

We have laid new turf in July and one side of fence is also new and well installed. The fence with the other neighbor is broken but they don't want to change it now because they're refurbishing the flat. The problem is that they use their garden to collect old "potentially useful" construction materials like bricks, wooden boards etc. The place looks like a rubbish dump.

We're trying to figure out a solution. just wonder if the piles from the neighbor could cause this (so that we can discuss with them and work together to solve it)? or it's just because of the new turf attracting animals in general? Many thanks!

They probably DO visit your neighbours, they just haven't noticed with their piles of junk.

The rats may be living in your neighbours garden, but are you feeding them? In that do you feed the birds as rats will eat fat balls and seed. Or are food scraps for your bin well wrapped and properly disposed of? The tiniest bit of food will encourage them.

Thank you for the reply!

In fact our garden is completely empty because everything is new, 1/3 with 🤔sand stones and 2/3 with the new turf and a new empty shed. We haven't even got any furniture or plants sorted. The bizarre thing is that two of our indirect neighbours have bird food but they have beautiful lawn without any visible holes (not that we spy on them but we could see the gardens from our loft conversion).

We do see lots of worms under the turf. I guess the animals come to eat them?? But worms should be in every garden right?

sorry, i meant Indian sand stones, not with the emoji

Is it squirrels burying nuts - could be foxes or badgers digging for worms.

Can you get some fine chicken wire and block gap in fence - digging down to bury wire so animals can't get under it.
I get the odd fox poo but it seems to be territory marking and so only appears once in a while.