Advice please re. front garden and cat poo

[ShesARumUn]

We have just moved into a new house; our front garden is pretty small, it's laid with small pebbles/gravel, which appears to be very attractive to the neighbourhood cats who like to use it as a litter tray.

We have thought about laying slate tiles but it's an expensive option. Does anyone have slate chips - these are bigger and rougher so may dissuade the cats? Any advice gratefully received.

We have bought a sonic cat scarer too but haven't started using it yet.

Thanks in advance.

In our old garden we had a problem with cats poo in the flowerbeds it was greatly improved by slate chips and planting lemongrass, lemon thyme, lemon verbena and lemon balm (apparently they don't like citrus smells )

Something rougher and horrid on their feet is a good start, so I think slate chips would work. You could also try (if no room for planting) sprinkling citrus essential oils around, as they absolutely loathe it. And would make your garden smell quite naice. If you ever see them doing it, lob something at them. I love cats, but have managed to deter a violent feral bully by lobbing bricks near them (specifically aiming to miss of course). Water balloons would probably have the same effect, and you wouldn't need to aim to miss. I do sympathise, our flower bed on our patio got used by all four of our cats and absolutely reeked until I paved it over and encouraged them to use the bed at the bottom of the garden.

I think slate chips or bigger gravel should do the trick. They must just like the little stuff because it's like cat litter. I have 2 cats - they love to poo in the flowers beds given half a chance, but not once in 8 years have they tried pooing in the slate-chip areas of the garden.

Bizarrely, we've found used coffee grounds repel them. I was spreading them about to raise the acidity in the soil for roses but a side effect has been no more cat poo!

My cats have started pooing outside my back door on grass it's making my kitchen stink, I feel sick all the time :(

I think I'm going to try a water pistol. But they don't seem to do it when I'm looking. No point putting anything lemon down as I guess it'll just wash away in the rain :/

Thanks all - sounds like slate chips may be the way to go. Also like the idea of citrus oil, will get some of that too.

We have never seen them - I guess they must come at night. It is just so frustrating; I love cats but oh my goodness it annoys me that they poo in my garden!

Any other suggestions gratefully received.