any tips on keeping a intruder (cat) out of our house?

[sweetuphoria]

We have a cat trying to get in through our cat flap several times in the day/night. If me or DH are about it will quickly scarper, but it has been getting in during the night when we are asleep and eating our cats food and generally just bullying them.

At first when it used to come in they used to hiss/scream which would cause me or DH to wake up, and as soon as the intruder sees us it runs out. However they seem to be getting even more terrified of it. Last night I got up to find the intruder eating all their food whilst they just stood looking, terrified.

How do I get rid of it?

You can get catflaps that operate by magnets which are attached to your cats' collars. No cat can enter without a magnet on its collar. Not sure how expensive they are, prob not that much

My cat used to do this. It was a bit embarrassing. The owners of the cats he had been thieving from came round and told us, so now we keep him in at night

Yeah I wanted to get one of those but neither of our cats will wear collars!

Wondered of there was any way of putting this cat off? cos its really bothering our cats. We don't even know where it lives!

Microchip cat flaps such as the Sureflap only lets in the microchips it knows. I loved the first time the evil intruder slammed into the new cat flap and my two cats gave him the bird from inside. One of my clients priced it up the Sureflap plus one microchip for cat cheaper than two trips to the vet to treat fighting related abscesses.

I'm having the same problem at the moment, I think it's an unneutered tom. It's a horrible, thuggy thing, I've had to take one of my cats to the vet twice after being beaten up by it.

Anyway, I used to have one of those magnet cat flaps and it can be forced open by a strong enough cat, not to mention it got very expensive buying replacements because my cats had those quick-release safety collars and kept losing them.

I think I am just going to stand guard with a super soaker until the intruder gets the message....

Thanks lizcat I will look into that, but we have 2 cats, would they be able to put the same micro chip in both?

EeuRouge - think ours in an unneutered tom too. I actually mentioned to DH about us getting a water gun ha ha

You don't need the same microchip (there are no duplicates any way) in both cats the Sureflap can be programmed to remember hundreds of chips and just barrs the ones it doesn't recognise. Programming is dead simple you press the button on the flap, shove the chipped cat through the flap and het presto the chip is learnt. The only ongoing thing you need to do is to wipe the outside of the flap regularly to prevent dirt from interferring with the chip reading.
Even hitting the flap at full pelt evil cat has been unable to get in - though he did have a very sore head.
Before someone suggests it I don't work for Sureflap (I know I evanglising anout them) just think they are a brilliant invention and as a vet promoting them actually reduces my income.

Ooops sorry about them.

Thanks lizcat

Hi Lizcat,

Thank you so much for singing our praises! Just to let everyone know, the SureFlap Microchip Cat Flap can store the microchip numbers of up to 32 cats (rather than hundreds :-D). If anyone has any other queries about SureFlap, there's lots of information on website: www.sureflap.com.

Best wishes,
SureFlap