Tiny Cat Mafia

[ThatCatLady]

Hi all, first time poster.
We have one cat, 1.5 bed terraced house, cat has access to the garden through cat flap. She never leaves the garden, nor by force, she’s just never leaves.
Neighbours have same size house as us. If it wasn’t impacting us I’d have no judgement here, but they have 3 young kids a beagle and 5 cats. The reason I’m mentioning house capacity does get relevant.
They started out with one cat, then the cat got pregnant, they sold rest of kittens but kept two, to end up with 3 cats. Cat got pregnant again, and again sold all but two kittens, making 5.
Problem is the neighbour cats now patrol the whole area like a tiny cat mafia, I know other neighbours have said they’ll tease their dogs and bully other local cats, including mine.
Our cat now can’t go outside because she keeps getting actively beat up by the neighbours cats. We have tried all sorts to keep the neighbours cats out, but it doesn’t work. At least twice a week there will be a 4am fight and our cat comes sprinting in having failed to try and stand her ground against them, waking the whole house up. The other afternoon their biggest one really went for her and made an absolute racket, we went running out to break it up, yelling and a whole commotion. The neighbours back door was open, they were 100% home, they didn’t come outside to check if anything was alright, just ignored it. Our cat has had a limp for two weeks now, chunks of fur missing, we’ve had to take the decision to stop letting her outside.

I really do understand that it’s none of my business how many pets our neighbours have, but surely they could have predicted filling a small house with cats would mean the cats would get territorial in the neighbourhood? I know cats fight and get territorial and it’s just a part of cats but injuries are happening now.

First off, AITA for being annoyed at this? I’m not planning on challenging them or bringing it to their door, but really am I just being a bit sensitive?

Secondly, ideas for how to “defend” our little garden from the furry mafia are super welcome! We’ve tried sprays, we even put the contents of our cats litter tray around the garden to try and scent mark it, nothing works.

I don't think you're unreasonable at all. I looked up to see if there's legal limits on cat ownership in the UK and there doesn't seem to be at all, but I did find this:

From 10 June 2024, cats in England will need to be microchipped and registered on a database by the time they're 20 weeks old, including indoor only cats. You can be fined up to £500 if your cat is not microchipped when they need to be. Please see the link to the DEFRA website with full information.

So I don't now how underhand or sneaky you're feeling but you could always report them anonymously and see what happens.

Thank you HobbitDreader, definitely nice to know I’m not just being a bit of a delicate daisy, I don’t know how comfortable I’d be going on the sneaky route though! It would not take much to work out where any complaints had come from, and we’re expecting our first baby around Christmas and I’m really not a fan of ending up in a neighbours war. I do wish they hadn’t just stayed inside though, I can’t imagine how they didn’t hear all the shouting with their door open, it does make me think they really don’t give a shit their cats are causing problems for others.

Do you reckon we’d get into any trouble if we used water pistols when they came into our garden?

Do you reckon we’d get into any trouble if we used water pistols when they came into our garden?

I'd try this as I've known it work on neighbours' cats. Good luck stopping the noisy catfights!

Never mind a water pistol, get the hose out on 'jet' setting and blast them. It won't hurt them and they'll learn pretty quickly.

Is it possible to cat proof your garden? Or if not, as your cat doesn't go far would she be happy with a catio?

Sadly your neighbours sound as if they have unneutered toms who will be wandering around beating up every cat in sight.

You know what catio isn’t the worst shout! Even though I have definitely made fun of them a bit before 🫠 maybe even that aviary netting.

I think we’ll start with the best water guns we can get so we can sniper guard the perimeter from inside the house (hose when we’re outside), then look at getting a catio if that doesn’t help.

Little kitty - let’s get your garden back 🫡