I. Bloody. Hate. Cats. arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggh

[LaTrucha]

Rant alert.

Growing up in the wilds of the country, we had cats who lived half in the house half in the garden.

We have recently forked out on a small house with a garden in a semi-detached row so that DCs can have a little bit of green space to run about in. Every other (insert sreaming swearword) person in our row seems to have at least one cat, if not two.

We have to go out every morning to clear up yet more cat shit from our garden so DD has even a chance of playing out there. It is absolutely revolting.

We are trying various foul-smelling pellets but this often means WE don't want to be in the garden. I am so cross with urban cat-keepers. Cats need space. Even if they're litter trained, if they're outside, they will do it. And they won;t do it in their own gardens. They'll go to the nearest cat-free spot. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhh

Plus the fact every time I want to do some gardening I have to run the risk of turning over soil with wet, foul cat poo in it.

What bloody works?

Get a cat...it won't do it in your garden and it'll fend off the other cats

I thought of that but we're away too much.

Zoo poo? Water pistol? Orange peel? These have all been suggested in the past....I only know that having a cat may work. It's very unpleasant though.

What do you do with the orange peel. It sounds a bit nicer than the pellets we're trying ATM.

They know we're on the look out for them, so rarely get a good shot withthe water pistol. I am considering a super soaker, though.

Do you know if you can buy zoo poo online? (what a question!) No zoo near. Is it safer than cat poo, anyway?

I think you just evenly distribute the peel around the soil. I've had a quick look on google and it seems some places you can telephone order and the other seemed out of stock, sorry....it looks like it is a zoo poo compost so not as yucky as cat poo

this?

A really, really high fence?

Get a dog?

A dog would be worse in terms of going away - they'd miss us!

We live by the seaside, so a really tall fence is just an invitation waiting to blow down.

Thanks all the same.

Thanks scurryfunge - I'll try the orange peel and perhaps the poo. That machine gets quite good reviews.

get a scare crow cat deterant. I resorted to one for the very reasons you are saying. Harmless and much more effective than anything else I ever tried. Just have to remember to turn it off before you go in the garden yourself.

Didn't get mine here but it was the first that popped up on google. You can get them on amazon and such places too.

www.deteracat.co.uk/scarecrow_water_jet_pack.htm

I'll have a look at that.

Someone has told me that tea bags soaked in Olbas oil works too.

Am extra hopping mad today as one of them has just scratched up all the seeds I just planted. I could cheerfully kill them all (and I used to like cats).

I would so forget to turn that off and get soaked, and then hate them more.

I don't rule it out though.

Off to peel some organges.... Obviously the pellets didn't work.

I have got squirted a couple of times by mine. It's on a timer so it squirts then gives you 30 seconds ish before it goes again.
Have to say I much prefer getting a little wet occassionally than have to clear up the mess when my son trails it into the house...

Some garden shops sell Lion or Tiger Dung. It works at treat. Bigger predator and all.

I will keep a look out for lion poo.

Now, I never thought I'd say that.

Orange peel not completely effective. Not too much damage in the seed bed today but one plant dug up.

Ultrasonic cat scarer - we have one for the front. It worked fairly well until the battery ran out and we would then get more cat poo until we replaced the battery, so my advice would be to wire it up to the mains if you can.

we had this one

oops, no we didn't - it was this one as it has the mains adapter too.

And it's cheaper too!

I have a plant its called a scaredy cat plant (no idea on its real name) It seems to be working no cat poo in that bit of the garden. The only down side is the plant smells a little odd a tiny bit like cat wee but unless you get really close you can't smell it!

Lots and lots of twigs! We went for a walk at our local forestry commission a few weeks ago and picked up loads of dry small branches/twigs. I've arranged them all over my vegetable patch, no cat is going to want to put his bottom down on that! It's worked for about a month now.

Thanks for those.

I'm trying the Olbas oil today.

I got the scardey cat plant as well and I'm pretty sure it has worked, as the neighbour's cats have not been in that area recently. I planted 2 of them inbetween some geraniums infront of my where I've just planted some herb seeds and I don't think I can really smell them too much tbh. They're only cheap too

Our cats poo in our garden actually.

Bearing in mind they especially like freshly dug soil I use cocktail and barbecue sticks in my seed pots (they don't like a stick up their bum!), also JoeJoe's twigs.

On the flower/veg bed I have placed loads of broken pots and stones in the spaces in between plants. Once the plants grow and fill up the spaces in the soil I am expecting they won't poo there anymore.

I'll have a look for those plants then.

And some sticks!

The olbas oil seems to be pretty good too. No poo this morning. They do have two cat-free gardens on either side, so I'm hoping that if we make our garden unpleasant enough they'll choose a different spot. Sorry neighbours!

I feel your pain LaTrucha, same here, terraced house, cat poo in the garden and our newly planted lettuce dug up. SO FCING ANNOYING! I have tried orange peel and coffee, neither of which has worked.

Hairywoman I'll try the cocktail sticks too, and some olbas oil