I'm sick of selfish neighbours and their cats

[sourglitterfrog]

We've lived in our house since last August, and the garden was a total state. Half the grass was either scorched yellow, dead or dug up by cats burying their scat.
I've done my best to revive it, spending lots of money aerating, scarifying and adding seed. It looks a lot better, considering we're on a budget and not able to afford a landscaper.
I've also spent a lot of money making a border, ready to plan fruit, veg and but the neighbourhood cats keep coming around and are continuing to be a nuisance.
I've got a PVC greenhouse, but I don't know what to do about planting stuff out when May comes. Chicken wire comes to mind, but my garden is going to look like Alcatraz, and I want the garden to be a safe space for birds and other wildlife, not to mention I don't want burnt yellow patches and turds in the garden, where my children play.
I've tried coffee grounds, sonar cat scarers, citrus peel to no avail.
I've spent upwards of £250 on cat deterrants and lawn repair this spring alone, to little avail.
Any advice would be gratefully received.
(If you're going to comment defending cats 'right to roam,' or similar snark, save it please. I don't dislike cats or their general nature. I just want safe solutions so I can have somewhat of a chance of a garden that isn't a communal cat toilet)

Costs about £100/£150 for an outdoor tap it might be worth the investment unless your home and using your garden full time I have an unneutered tom cat that comes in and sprays so I spray him with the water gun he avoids my garden now occasionally I need to remind him I live here but he learned quite fast

My neighbour put jaggy branches from her old christmas tree on top of the soil around plants etc. It put my cat off going in there at all and is harmless to other plants and wildlife. It wouldn't be much good for your lawn but it's definitely effective in flower beds.

Agree about cats being harmful to our wildlife. Most vets and the RSPCA advices both for their and wildlife safety that cats be kept indoors but I know for a fact from some friends they deliberately let theirs out so they don’t have to bother with the daily chore of cleaning litter trays. Pretty selfish but here we are 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s pretty much impossible to get a cat to do what you want but as a the owner of 3 outdoor cats, i left space in a bed and they have my compost heap as their outdoor litter tray. They still wee in my neighbour’s garden (he allows it because he likes their company) but no. 2’s are strictly in our garden. I just make sure to remove the poo every couple of days so they think it’s fresh and don’t go looking for a better spot. I think if they have a “fresh” area in their own garden, they’re more likely to choose it.

I’ve heard lion manure keeps them away. Failing that, the only other alternative is to spray them with water (mine couldn’t care less about citrus, lavender or whatever else is recommended).

I use a water pistol and swear a lot.

The problem is that your garden is well established as their toilet area. You will need a concerted effort to deter them. A super soaker water pistol is helpful to squirt if they come into rhe garden. The scents pp mentioned can work, you need to find the one they dislike (not all cats have citrus for example). Spikes or gravel that they find uncomfortable to walk on also helpful. Chicken wire would also work. It's quite cheap
Basically you need to make it as uncomfortable as possible for them to come in

I have issues with fox poo in our garden. I thought cats were usually quite discreet about toileting, all mine certainly have been. My current ones come into to use their litter tray.

I would invest in a super soaker. Perhaps add some citrus oil to the water too to drive the point home that your garden is not a safe space.

Do you have hedges or fences? If it's fences, would you be able to do something to make the tops of them difficult for a cat to walk on? Little spikes might work, but they also don't like to walk on anything that wobbles/feels unstable. Also, neighbour should contribute to the cost of the solution (depending on how reasonable they are and how much hassle you think the conversation will be...)

Chilli etc doesn't work that well. It doesn't outlast rain and dew, and it can be harmful to plants and organisms you actually want in your garden.

If you're feeling really generous (or resigned) to the flippin' cats, you could put a few trays of gravel around the garden and hope they become inclined to using those rather than your beds and lawn...bit of a long shot though.

Spraying them with water will work (maybe a sprinkler?). Please don't add citrus oil as a PP has suggested. If it gets on their fur, they will lick it off and it can make them very very ill.

Lastly, in my experience most cats prefer to use an indoor litter tray if a clean one is available and they know they won't get ambushed in it... mine has literally never weed or pooed outdoors. Not sure what the litter tray hygiene/safety situation might be like in your neighbour's house with all those cats.

My cat goes to the toilet outside. I don’t know where he poos but it’s not in our garden.

Our boy is half Bengal so his pray drive is really high. He eats a mouse a day and delivers the gizzards to the bottom of the stairs 🤢

He is 12 now and has only ever once caught a baby bird. Likely sick or abandoned.

Our garden is small but filled with wildlife. Breeding birds are very aggressive. We have tits. We also have medium sized black/ brown ground nesting ones who are super aggressive. They even give us a run for our money when they have little ones and will fly at your head. Don’t know the name.

So I do think the ecology claims are over egged. Most cats are not as good as hunting as ours and his death count of anything of value is 1; questionably zero if it was going to die anyway.

I was going to suggest that the bottles with water, it works

Cayenne pepper worked for me and stopped all the neighbourhood cats using newly dug beds as a toilet.

My cats are terrified of birds 😂

That's a sample of one though. My buddy works at the environment agency and he reckons domestic cats impact on wildlife is devastating.

Get a water pistol - coming from someone with cats 😂

It won’t do them any harm!

Yea this was a problem for us at our last house. It was honestly partly the reason we moved. Our garden just smelt of cat shit and was unpleasant to use. We tried everything.

Hardly, most are too lazy, mine crap hunter, mice mainly hardly endangered species!
Even my old every 6 weeks or so

Oh I feel your pain.
We had this for years when we first moved in and tried everything we could from owl or snake deterrents to reflection tools, netting and noise machines and every ‘cat’ deterrent going.

They would sh*t in the middle of the garden beside the kids toys and sometimes even ON them (wtf?)

We had no pet as apparently that deters them.

The only thing that’s worked is scarring them away when we see them in the garden, sounds cruel but they aren’t hurt by us. We still get the odd cat 💩 but it’s every few weeks now rather than most days.

I spotted a plant in the garden centre recently that apparently deters cats - Coleus caninus but I don’t know if it works. I have two cats and my neighbour would recommend a supersoaker; she squirts mine if she catches them in her garden which seems to have reduced their visits.

I move them along if I see them by her fence, keep them in at night, have a designated toilet area in the garden (can’t make them use it but they always do when we first let them out) and I’ve recall trained them. I planted a few types of catmint last year to encourage them to stay in our garden which they love, along with quite a few other neighbourhood cats, so I’m planning to expand my planting for cats this year.

I studied ecology, and work in gardens and landscapes daily. Personally I don’t buy it. It’s not what I am seeing and besides our own I have experience of other cats too.

So we will have to disagree.

To all the cat owners suggesting super soakers, do you not think people have to go to work?

Most people can't supervise their garden from 9-5 and cats are most active at night when we are asleep. How do you think people have the time to stand guard at their back door?🙄

My next door neighbour's cats venture into my garden very sporadically but they don't hang about long enough to toilet, because I have a terrier. When the door is open she will belt out there to watch any cat scramble up the fence and the cats know she is there and her appearances are randomly timed. Obviously she's not out there continuously or at night (except when I let her out for a pee), but they steer clear all the time except to tiptoe through on their way elsewhere. Could you borrow an active little dog for a few days? It might put them off and you wouldn't actually have to own it.

Garlic granules was fairly effective for me, and twiggy sticks around young plants as well.

Cats shit on our gravel. Very annoying.

Lastly, in my experience most cats prefer to use an indoor litter tray if a clean one is available and they know they won't get ambushed in it... mine has literally never weed or pooed outdoors.

My cat will only use an indoor litter tray as a last resort. He went for 2 days without having a pee or a crap when it snowed once, and then ended up going in the corner of a room behind a door.