Bully cats? How do you deal with them??

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My cat is, to put it mildly, a very delicate flower. She's very small, sweet, and could not even catch a moth (she wanders around the garden sniffing daintily at things like something out of a Jane Austen novel).

Anyway there are a couple of 'bully' cats in our new neighbourhood who come to find her late at night and I'm getting fed up of hearing a god almighty cat row at 1am and rushing down with a milk carton of water, chasing the bully cats around outside, and managing to get the water mostly over my socks.

Is there a good way to deter them?

How about keeping her in at night so she is not exposed to these night prowlers?

We do keep her in now and rig the catflap (a board falls down with a large bang if they try to push through, I was hoping that would scare them off!)

Do you know of any way to deter them from actually coming near the house?

Do they approach the house during the day too?

Yes, less so than before since I've started chasing them away, they are very bold!

One is obviously interested in mating and he's less of a pain, but the other one is quite creepy - it stares my cat down and she looks terrified, poor love

Might be a good idea to get a microchip catflap that is actually designed to only allow cats with a recognized chip (ie your girl) inside the house. If you're keeping her in, and/or they absolutely can't get in the house, and hopefully bang themselves trying, then they should get fed up and go away. (It's no fun when there's no action.) At the least, you could relax and just ignore the sounds from outside for as long as they last.

Just to check - is your girl neutered?

Yes she's been done!

Thanks for the advice, looks like I'll have to keep up the cat campaign for a little longer :)

Best of luck. If you go for a chip flap, Sureflap is the one generally recommended by posters here.

I had this recently with my boy cat, usually he'd see him off but this is a large young cat and mines getting on now. When it got to a point that this young cat was coming in the house I thought I had to do something. It wasnt fair he wasn't allowed into his own garden then he was under siege in his own home. So I did what was for me unthinkable, got the water gun out. It worked two days of getting him and he's not been back.
It's a shame he seems a sweetie but I can't have my old boy bullied in his own home.

A water sprayer is a good idea - doesn't harm them and they just hate being wet. I've used one of those garden plant sprayers with a pump action and it goes 15-20 ft. Not only that, but the sound of the pump being worked will eventually deter them without needing to actually spray.

Sounds as if you could do with a chip flap as well, Cantbelieve ?

Yeah cozies right even the sound of the water gun had this cat off in the end.
We haven't a cat flap so this bold little bugger was just jumping in windows or waltzing in through the door! But yeah I've heard those chip flaps make a massive difference.

It's been cat wars round here lately. Sparkling Cat had a bite and ended up at the Vets.

She is in at night, but a lot of the neighbourhood cats aren't.

I have the supersoaker loaded and ready now.

One of my cats was bullied so bad she never wants to go out again. It was at our last house and they would come round meowing for her, I threw water over them regularly, a neighbour complained to me about 'all the cats meowing at night' then we moved house and she hasn't left the house since.

The 2 other cats have tried to escape (one has a few times) but she is terrified of going outside now.

Kittens

We have one cat round here who the owner admits would have an ASBO if it was human. It ambushed Sparkling Cat while she was having a poo. £90 vets bill that time.